Richard Falk
January 6th, 2009 at 7:00 pm by David FarrarNot surprisingly Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn thinks Israel is the source of all evil, and he has found someone who argues that Israel is guilty of war crimes (this is the same Israel that phones people up in advance of bombing any nearby buildings). So who is the person I/S places great reliance on:
Unfortunately for them, the UN special rapporteur for human rights in the Occupied Territories – begs to differ:…
Who to believe? Random ranters, or an internationally renowned human rights expert, tasked by the UN with monitoring the implementation of international law in the area? Tough question…
Citing the UN special rapporteur for human rights in the Occupied Territories as an internationally renowned human rights expert would make you think he was some sort of Sir Kenneth Keith (who is internationally renowned).
But this is the UN Human Rights Council at work. Arguably the most hypocritical disgusting apparatus at the UN. So when they appoint a “special rapporteur for human rights in the Occupied Territories” they actually appoint the biggest Israel hater they can find anywhere.
The rapporteur is Richard Falk. And what do we know about Mr Falk:
- He supported the Iranian revolution and attacked Jimmy Carter for labeling the Ayatollah Khomeini a religious fanatic. His love for Iran is shown with thsi quote “Having created a new model of popular revolution based, for the most part, on nonviolent tactics, Iran may yet provide us with a desperately-needed model of humane governance for a third-world country”
- He is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist
- He argues that Vietnam war protesters were entitled to bomb facilities in the US as a form of protest
- It is no surprise then that he supports suicide bombings as a valid method of struggle.
- Compares Israel to Nazi Germany
So Mr Falk is a huge champion of human rights – the right to suicide bomb, and the right of that nice peaceful human rights loving Ayatollah.
His views should be given the same respect as, well what I/S calls the sewer.
Related posts:
- The UN Human Rights Commission 9/11 conspiracy appointment
- US disengages from UN Human Rights Council
- Hamas nuking Israel
- Iran wants Israel “wiped off the map”
January 6th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
The UN and all there special agents are a left wing experiment gone horribly wrong.
Zimbabwe, Iran etc can get away with real human rights abuses, but no lets focus on Israel and the US.
Strange to see that Israel was today operating on a Palestinian child with a serious birth condition. Yes those Jews are evil.
Do Israeli Arabs and Palestinians have access to some of the best hospitals in the world? Yes but Israel are still evil.
If Israel was a Nazi state the whole Palestinian population would have been rounded up. Half smoked straight away, another 40% worked to death and the rest hold up in a real ghetto with no actual food, no medicine and no future.
Whoever calls Israel a Nazi state should be taken back in time and left to die in the Warsaw Ghetto.
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
The UN just keeps on making it easier and easier for people like me to reconfirm my opinion that they really are a pack of idiots that are below contempt.
I have to wonder why their concept of right and wrong is so different from mine?
One thing I do notice though is people like Richard Falk and the Morse woman choose to live in the democracies they so distain and not the contries they profese to admire. Why is that I wonder?
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Lucy,
Either he’s just plain crazy, or he doesn’t hate liberal democracy and love totalitarian theocracies as much as we’ve been told.
Probably he’s just plain crazy, cos that other option has a bunch of long words and stuff in it – the kind of shit that academics use when they’re doing their fancy word magic.
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
Agree Lucy.
People like Falk, Locke and co take for granted everything that has been fought for by our forefathers.
Anyone would think Chamberlain had been cloned.
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Let’s see how many antisemitic boxes Mr Falk, I/S and, well, the Left can tick:
The European Union’s European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) (superseded in 2007 by the European Fundamental Rights Agency) notes the following typical antisemitic actions:
* Denying the Jewish people the right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor;
* Applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation;
* Using the symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism (e.g. claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis;
* Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis;
* Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel.[41][42]
The EUMC added that criticism of Israel cannot be regarded as antisemitism so long as it is “similar to that leveled against any other country.”[41]
France:
“In France, Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin commissioned a report on racism and antisemitism from Jean-Christophe Rufin, president of Action Against Hunger and former vice-president of Médecins Sans Frontières, in which Rufin challenges the perception that the new antisemitism in France comes exclusively from North African immigrant communities and the far right.[43][44] Reporting in October 2004, Rufin writes that “[t]he new anti-Semitism appears more heterogeneous,” and identifies what he calls a new and “subtle” form of anti-Semitism in “radical anti-Zionism” as expressed by far-left and anti-globalization groups, *in which criticism of Jews and Israel is used as a pretext to “legitimize the armed Palestinian conflict.”[45][46]* (My bold)
UK
MacPherson Report:
“The report states that left-wing activists and Muslim extremists are using criticism of Israel as a “pretext” for antisemitism,[48] and that the “most worrying discovery” is that antisemitism appears to be entering the mainstream.[49] It argues that anti-Zionism may become antisemitic when it adopts a view of Zionism as a “global force of unlimited power and malevolence throughout history,” a definition that “bears no relation to the understanding that most Jews have of the concept: that is, a movement of Jewish national liberation …” Having re-defined Zionism, the report states, traditional antisemitic motifs of Jewish “conspiratorial power, manipulation and subversion” are often transferred from Jews onto Zionism. The report notes that this is “at the core of the ‘New Antisemitism’, on which so much has been written,” adding that many of those who gave evidence called anti-Zionism “the lingua franca of antisemitic movements.”[50]”
US
“The U.S. State Department’s 2004 Report on Global Anti-Semitism identified four sources of rising anti-Semitism, particularly in Europe:
* “Traditional anti-Jewish prejudice… This includes ultra-nationalists and others who assert that the Jewish community controls governments, the media, international business, and the financial world.”
* “Strong anti-Israel sentiment that crosses the line between objective criticism of Israeli policies and anti-Semitism.”
* “Anti-Jewish sentiment expressed by some in Europe’s growing Muslim population, based on longstanding antipathy toward both Israel and Jews, as well as Muslim opposition to developments in Israel and the occupied territories, and more recently in Iraq.”
* “Criticism of both the United States and globalization that spills over to Israel, and to Jews in general who are identified with both.”[39]”
Source is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_antisemitism
Let’s also acknowledge that antisemites are not always dumb, but endlessly inventive, ie, the concept of “proportionality” is the latest from the Joo haters, another is that Israeli actions are building another generation of Joo haters in the ME. Cleverly missing from these latest is that reverse proportionality means that Israel should respond with 7000 rockets, bombs and mortars aimed exclusively at the Gaza civilian population.. and that years of such ordinance aimed at Israeli citizens will build an undying hatred of Palestinians. Adding to that, 2000 years of European antisemitism means that Israel should seek a “final solution” on Europe.
JC
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
the good new for the Left and bad news for the Right is the next POTUS will be a sane centre left politician called Barak Obama – not Robert Fisk or John Pilger or Keith Locke. And someone who won’t desecrate Rabin’s memory – who wants peace rather than demonise Israel.
So let the anti-US and anti-Israeli Left rant away, they won’t be having much influence in a few weeks.
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
JC its the same ones that claim the Jews were behind 911 and no Jews went to work that day.
There is also the British report where they cut out that the size in anti-semitism was caused by Muslims and changed it to skinheads. As that is more PC.
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
What is interesting is that we are seeing, by and large, the defense of the murder of children. Do people who defend Israel’s bombing of civilian populations believe that Muslim children are less human than non-Muslim children? Are they not entitled to the same rights as non-Muslim children? We know that Hamas hides amongst residential neighbourhoods, that is not in dispute. But Israel has the choice of targeting these people knowing full well that there will be civilian deaths as a result, and they do it again, and again, and again, and again. Where is the outrage at this? Conservatives and others on the political right who feel it their duty to defend Israel at every step will argue that it is the fault of Hamas for hiding in residential neighbourhoods, and casually overlook the fact that Israel is willfully dropping bombs on those same neighbourhoods. There are people who defend Israel no matter what crimes it commits, and many of them have expressed their sadly predictable opinions on this blog many times.
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
yes there are. And there are a lot of left wing critics of Israel that sound a lot like the extreme right. but the expectation is that the Left provide more intelligent analysis. Not the mindless ranting we are seeing.
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
NRT has egg on his face if he seriously believes that dribble.
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
NRT is the egg.
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
“But this is the UN Human Rights Council at work. Arguably the most hypocritical disgusting apparatus at the UN. So when they appoint a “special rapporteur for human rights in the Occupied Territories” they actually appoint the biggest Israel hater they can find anywhere.”
So Falk is getting Helen as his assistant then. Hypocritical. Disgusting. Israel hater. Yep all fits. Dont forget “Expert at wasting other peoples money”. A pre-requesite for UN greatness!!
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Radar no one here wants any civilian dead, muslim or Jew.
The issue is do you support Hamas being able to chuck rockets at Israel civilians on a daily basis? Don’t you think 8,000 rockets in 5 years is taking the piss?
Israel has been as clinical as it can in targeting Hamas. They are not the German Luftwaffe straff bombing London.
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
“It is a war crime to attack civilian targets and destroy buildings and cause the deaths of innocent civilians.” – Keith Locke, earlier today.
Where was Mr Locke three weeks ago, when Hamas Militants started firing rockets at civilians in Israel?
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
DPF you missed out the biggest lie by Falk. On NRT it states that Israel is collectively punishing 1.5 million civilians because of a few militants.
Lefties can you define a few? I would call a few having under 10. In which case Mossad would have taken them out and there would be no colaterial damage. But no according to the left tens of thousands is only a few.
Lefties can you please give me a Few dollars, based on left wing accounting.
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Radar, what choice does Israel have? It can either counterattack, or sit back and twiddle its thumbs while its own cities burn at the hands of rocket attacks. Obviously it has to counterattack to protect its citizens. If Hamas (the elected government of Palestine) similarly valued its own civilians, it would not place offensive military assets inside residential areas. Indeed it would also not instigate violence against Israel knowing that there will be a response from the superior Israeli military.
Also the talk of a disproportionate response by Israel is a nonsense, and Helen Clark should shut the hell up. When the police deal with armed offenders, if the offenders resist they will be attacked with lethal force until they cease to resist. They will not shoot one offender for every policeman/civilian killed; they will simply keep shooting the offenders until they are ALL neutralised or give up. They same standard should be applied here.
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
I see some on The Standard are calling for arms to be sent to Gaza.
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
If Pierson and Irish want to send theirs I am only to happy to amputate them for them.
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-why-bombing-ashkelon-is-the-most-tragic-irony-1216228.html
Of course this whole problem of land ownership could be solved if those who have legal claim are allowed to have their land back.
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Kiki how do you determine working out who owns which piece of land. Yes Israel gained land by war, but there is also large amounts that were legally purchased over the last 200 years.
Also what do you suggest happens to the land that has been cultivated and developed by Israel?
Assuming you haven’t been there most of the area was desert and surprising there wasn’t a high Arab population. You can now go to places near the Dead Sea where nothing grew for thousands of years and see massive date plantations.
Should they also give back Tel Aviv which didn’t exist until mid last century?
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
If they come up with the legal title which many still have then they own the land, quite simple, just how artwork and land was returned to the jewish people (or their families) that survived the nazis. We give land to maoris on the basis of words.
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
I am pleased that our Prime Minister is saying nothing on this issue. Have a bloody good holiday Mr Key, then come back and sort out the crap that the last Govt. saddled this country with.
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Kiki so you end up with a patchwork of titles. This works when you have one country, but is impossible with two seperate states.
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Kiki
I beg to differ.
Israel won the land off of Jordan and Egypt in a war to destroy the state of Israel and kill the Jews.
Therefore they don’t have to give anything back, they won it fair and square.
They aren’t occupying Palestinian land as there was no Palestine.
Both bits of land (Gaza and the so called West bank) were part of the Ottoman Empire for the 400yrs before 1922 when the British were given the mandate to hand it all (incl Jordan) to the Jews for a jewish homeland.
This mandate carried on from the League of nations to the UN.
The same anti-semetic UN of today that runs two organisations for refugees in the world, one for so called Palestinians (who never existed as there is and has been NO state of Palestine) and one for the rest of the world.
In 1948 they became part of Egypt and Jordan when the war failed to destroy Israel in the 1948 war.
Vote:It became part of Israel in 1967.
Though the Israelis left Gaza in 2005.
January 6th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
So where did these people live before they gathered in refugee camps? why would they be called refugee camps?
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-why-bombing-ashkelon-is-the-most-tragic-irony-1216228.html
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
They lived all over the place. There are two so called refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. The rest of the Arabs have lived there when it was part of Egypt. At a birthrate of over 7 per family of course the population has dramatically increased over the last 60 years.
90% off the Arabs left Israel as they were told by the Arab League to leave for a week while they sweep the Jews into the sea and then you can move back and have what you want. The Israeli’s never forced them to leave and actually encouraged them to stay.
The othe 10% stayed and are Israeli citizens.
The West Bank was actually part of Jordan until Israel one it in 67. If Israel had of lost would the “Palestinians” be complaining to Jordan about having a seperate state or just become Jordanians?
Vote:January 6th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
I also have one other question. What will happen to Israel when it’s internal population of Moslems becomes greater than the jewish?
it currently stands at 15% to 76%.
I know it’s from wikipedia but
Population growth rate
1.8% (2007)[2]
Vote:During the 1990s, the Jewish population growth rate was about 3% per year, as a result of massive immigration to Israel, primarily from the republics of the former Soviet Union. There is also a high population growth rate among certain Jewish groups, especially adherents of Haredi Judaism.
The growth rate of the Arab population in Israel is 2.5%, while the growth rate of the Jewish population in Israel is 1.7%. The growth rate of the both Jewish and Arab population is slowing down from 3.8% in 1999 to 2.5% in 2006 for Arab and 1.4% to 1.7% for Jew. The fastest growing segment of population remain to be Arab Muslim with the latest growth rate of 2.8% for 2007.
January 6th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Kiki
My point is that Israel owns the land.
There was no Palestine, nor Palestinians.
That is a construct as part of the strategy to destroy Israel.
The refugee issues are all covered here.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths2/Refugees.html#m1
Land issues are covered here
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths2/Boundaries.html#i1
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths2/Israelsroots.html#a2
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths2/Partition.html#c1
the 1948 war here
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths2/Warof1948.html#d1
The 67 War here
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths2/1967war.html#f7
settlements in Israel taken in War from aggressors are here
Vote:http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths2/Settlements.html#t3
January 6th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
kiki:
I dont think I ever had respect for Fisk, but if I did, I certainly lost it when he got suckered by the melting point of steel arguement in the 11/9 attacks and started implying conspiracy. In this case I note he goes at pains to mourn over the tragedy of the Palestinians, and cries over the numbers of dead – yet fails to note that no one would be dead if Palestine stopped firing rockets at Israel. Indeed he whines about the sqalid living conditions, and yet is completely oblivious to the fact that were Palestine to stop attacking Israel, Palestine’s infrastructure would not be continually destroyed during fighting and this combined with the economic growth that accompanies peace and stability would quickly raise the Palestinians out of squalar.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 12:07 am
kiki
Vote:The vast majority of the land that came to be recognised by the UN as being the ligitimate 1948 boundaries of the State of Israel was legally bought from absentee Arab landowners most of whom lived in Lebanon and who, prior to the Jewish migrations, rented the land to Arab tenament farmers. The Jewish buyers of the land were entitled to vacant possession of the land they legally bought usually at full market prices. Over the years I have debated this point with a raft of pro-Palestinian supporters and I have issued a challenge that not one of them has been able to meet and that is to link to any land deed (or any book that has copies of any land deed) of any substantive block of land within the 1948 boundaries as defended in the 1948 war that shows a legitimate Palestinian Arab owner who still owns any land illegally occupied by any Israeli. To date none have been proferred because the stolen land meme pro-Palestinians speak and write of is a figment of Palestinian propoganda. The land taken by Israel in wars of conquest such as in 1967 is a whole separate matter.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:23 am
KIA is on point, as usual.
As to the issue of Arab citizens of Israel, there may eventually be a problem but you’d be well off base to assume that ethnic heritage here will overcome rationality. Arab Israelis are Israelis first.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 12:37 am
The number of people killed or injured by Palestinian rockets is actually very small. Not quite a pinprick as NRT says because presumably the fear and the disruption to the everyday lives of Israeli’s who are in range of the rockets is very real (which is of course the whole point of terrorism). No country should, or indeed would, put up with an aggressor flinging rockets over its border but there is a huge question mark over whether this is an appropriate or in fact morally justifiable response.
Israel is bombing and shelling densely populated urban areas full of civilians. Yes there are Hamas fighters hiding among them effectively using their own people as human shields and yes there is a word for that but Israeli pilots and soldiers are conciously choosing to murder innocent civilians everytime they pull the trigger and the same word, “evil”, applies there too. There are circumstances where killing the innocent would be justifiable, for example if the threat was much higher and by doing so the lives of a significant number of Israelis would be saved. This is not the case in Gaza. Instead we have a massive and bloody overreaction to the threat posed by Hamas and a situation where for every Israeli death 15-20 Palestinian civilians (not counting militants and police) have to die also. There are even greater numbers of wounded.
The worst thing is that the response may be counterproductive. You can’t kill ideas with bombs. They may manage to deal to Hamas (or they might just melt away), but at the same time the Israelis will be creating futher grievence along with the next generation of extremists and suicide bombers. Israel actually needs someone to change the script and to try something other than disproportionate force if they want a long term solution. This is difficult, when you have the strongest military in the middle east and the backing of the US every problem looks like it should be solved with guns.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 1:15 am
1. A majority of Palestinian voters elect a terrorist government.
2. Democratically-elected terrorists suicide bomb innocent Israelis.
3. Israel puts up a wall to keep the terrorists in. End of suicide bombings.
4. Democratically-elected terrorists fire rockets at innocent Israelis.
5. Israel fires back – with interest. (The same disproportionate approach was the only way the Americans could defeat the disproportionately stubborn and suicidal Japanese in WWII.)
6. Dozens of innocent, and probably just as many not-so-innocent, terrorist-voting Gaza civilians are killed, along with many more cowardly terrorists who hide behind them.
7. Democratically-elected terrorists keep firing rockets at innocent Israelis.
8. Israel invades Gaza to wipe out rockets. Likely to succeed. Palestinians increasingly resemble the Black Knight in Monty Python and Holy Grail. Israel wins another war and withdraws.
Question to critics of Israel: what would you do to defend your citizens against vicious terrorists who, like the Japs in WWII, are happy to use their own people as cannon-fodder and refuse to see sense?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 2:46 am
“Question to critics of Israel: what would you do to defend your citizens against vicious terrorists who, like the Japs in WWII, are happy to use their own people as cannon-fodder and refuse to see sense?”
Firstly, I would have stopped trying to give those people the impression I was a “vicious terrorist” myself, John but that’s rather too late now and the chance for proving that really expired some time between Hamas’ election and the Christmas incursion.
Secondly, I would have asked those people who voted for Hamas, why they voted for them, and I’d have listened to what they said. Again, that’s rather too late.
Sadly, neither of these rather elementary tactics were ever tried, in any meaningful sense, at the time they could have made a difference. Things have now moved far beyond that point now, and the game has changed altogether. Question is, did it need to be like this?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 8:37 am
sorry reid, you play the hand you have, not the one you would prefer in a better life.
Gazans voted for Hamas because Hamas was going to wipe out Israel and exterminate all the Jews. Which part of “Islamic resistance” is hard to understand?
hyperbole?
Does anyone really think that Hamas didnt mean what its charter says? Its not as though there is a secret appendix which goes, oh and by the way, after we’ve stood for social justice, law and order, infrastructure and quality employment and services, we might just try and exterminate the neighbours.
I saw the “hundreds” protesting in welly yesterday (about 100 max of the usual PAW dreadlocked hippy rent a lefty crowd). I find it remarkable that they feel the need to express solidarity with an openly fascist terror entity. But hey at least they hate jews, so its respectable.
As has been said hundreds of times here. What would happen to Gaza if the terrorists stopped firing missiles? Oh yes, it would become prosperous and take advantage of its magical real estate to be the next Mediterranean resort destination.
What would happen if Israel put down its weapons and took down the wall? Oh yes, there would be a war of extermination followed by Israel turning back into a desert as part of “free” palestine. Well I don’t want to see footage of Israelis being thrown off buildings thanks (of course we wouldnt see this, because Reuters, AFP and the BBC only cover the misdeeds of democracies, you can expect no better of theocratic thugs).
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 8:50 am
They are not bombing civillian populations. Civillians are geting caught in the crossfire. There is a difference. Israel could flatten Gaza if it wanted to. If Hamas agreed to live in peace and stopped firing missiles, there would be no war. You pro-terrorists have a completely screwed up moral compass. What you are suggesting is insane. If I hide behind my kids while shooting at your kids, you are saying that because I am sheltering behind kids you will just sit back and let yours be terrorised and/or killed? Not even Obama thinks that.
In WWII my mother’s home was hit by mortar and artillery rounds fired by Canadian forces who were attacking Germans in that part of Italy. Her younger brother was killed. She didn’t blame the Canadians. She blamed the Germans for fighting from her yard.
You lefties should be blaming the Hamas terrorists for fighting from BEHIND children. They are the war criminals.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 8:57 am
What reid forgets about Islamofascism is that he too is one of the ‘unbelievers’ (infidels)
In the following speech the Ayatollah Khomeini reminded us all what it means to be Islamic
“Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled or incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world. . . . But those who study Islamic Holy War will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world. . . . Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill them, put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]…. Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for the Holy Warriors! There are hundreds of other [Qur'anic] psalms and Hadiths [sayings of the Prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all this mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.”
Islamists are involved in over 22 active conflicts across the globe. Bloodletting against Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Chinese to African animist and even Muslim countries’ some of the worst, most hate-driven violence in the world today is perpetrated by Muslims and in the name of Islam
So reid, when you state “Sadly, neither of these rather elementary tactics were ever tried, in any meaningful sense, at the time they could have made a difference.” Do you really believe they would make a difference?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 9:14 am
no no no patrick, you don’t understand. Islam means peace, prosperity, tolerance,human rights and excellent social services. you just need to look at its formation, its purpose its practitioners and its history. They you could look at the economic and social performance of every country that practices the religion…
oh yes, oops…
yours in perpetual jihad
deity nigel
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 9:16 am
There is also a very powerful ‘judeaofacist’ element in Israeli politics. There are religious nutters there as loony in their beliefs as Bin Laden or Brian Tamaki, and they do hold a large elemtn of power due to the MMp style of govt there.
The Israeli population doesn’t speak with one voice on these matters any more than any other nation does. They range from those who agree with returning to the 1967 borders to those who demand the Sinai, parts of Jordon and Syria upto Damascus. I know Israelis who protest against their troops, I have met soldiers who refused to fight in Lebanon.
And I’ve also met just as wide a range of Palestinians. There is not one over-arching view here.
There is a massive tragedy going on however, and those least able to do anything about it are suffering the most.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 9:27 am
“a large element of power” mike? How much, 5%? In a democracy which is overwhelmingly liberal and secular.
versus oh, the entire elected government of Gaza.
Incidentally, what happened to the previously “elected” government of Gaza? Oh thats right, they were summarily thrown off buildings and otherwise brutally purged.
Yup almost exactly the same. Isn’t equivalence wonderful.
That said, it is true that the Israeli conservatives are gaining political ground. Probably something to do with the fact that they said giving Gaza back to the palestinians would only lead to a bad outcome for Israel. Everyone else said it had to be tried, Israel had to seek an accommodation, and that this was part of demonstrating that a two state solution was viable.
Guess what? Many now think that the Israeli conservatives may have had a point. Bummer that facts on the ground thing isn’t it?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 9:30 am
ps., tragedies are acts of God (I should know, ask me).
There is nothing tragic in firing 8,000 rockets at your neigbour and then feigning surprise when eventually they strike back.
This is exactly the response that Hamas was looking for.
Why? Well of course Hamas is actually another Iranian proxy militia, this is just part of Iran’s game to destabilise the region, and to throw Obama off balance before he gets his feet under the desk of the Oval office. Palestinian civilians are just the worthless pawns that Iran is prepared to sacrifice for its strategic goals.
Notice how Saudi and Egypt have responded to this event? They get it.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 9:43 am
So reid, let’s see if I’ve got this right…
If you were Israel, you would bombard Gaza with questionnaires?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 9:46 am
no, he’d run…or slither back into the ocean like the jellyfish he is
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 9:51 am
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/1/6/1231234399392/Gallery-Gaza-Palestinian–003.jpg
You sick bastards each and every one of you. Kids die and you all rant on about left wing UN conspiracies. Go screw yourselves.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 9:53 am
What I find hilerious is the left wing hand wringers like Locke are quite happy to overlook all of their “principles” whenever it comes to anything to do with Israel.
Vote:The Palestinians have one of the highest birth rates of any population in the world yet not a word from our green wringer washing machines. I believe the whole displaced palestinian population when this started was as few as 300 000, then came the tactic of breed the Israelies a big problem.
Perhaps critics like Locke could offer a holistic solution to the problems of the Palestinian people instead of reinforcing their own destructive behaviour.
Unless of course he has scrambled eggs for brains.
January 7th, 2009 at 9:55 am
“40 killed as Israeli tanks hit Gaza school”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4811464a12.html
I guess their phone was off the hook or engaged
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 9:58 am
“Kids die and you all rant on about left wing UN conspiracies”
Yeah Paul, Just like the 18 000 kiwi kids that die each year that you are so concerned about.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 10:05 am
Yup a report from Reuters based on Palestinian claims. Must be true. No attempt to use propaganda to influence western opinion going on here.
How about “hamas terrorists herd civilians into school to act as human shields so they can continue mortar attacks on Israeli positions”.
No that would never happen in Pallywood would it?
Paul, you don’t like it here, you could always piss off back to indymedia. Save your fake outrage and try and learn some geopolitics.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 10:10 am
SSSL
Didn’t hear a peep from you on what the death toll in this one may have been?
“The facility was empty due to a Home Front Command directive to keep schools and kindergartens closed”
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231167267556&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 10:14 am
That Patrick is the difference between a government that exists to protect its citizens, and one that regards them as propaganda assets.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Patrick
Im not going to pretend Hamas are the good guys.
Just pointing out that the commentors on this blog (general) belief that Israel are the doing no wrong, is just crap.
Shunda
Vote:18000 abortions a year is sickening
im pro-choice in a way but abortion as a common birth control method is beyond a joke
January 7th, 2009 at 10:19 am
I thought Mr Falk was very good in Columbo.
“just one more question before I leave” That was always the Golden Shot!
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 10:22 am
equally, I don’t ever see any of you lefties pointing out Hamas atrocities
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 10:22 am
I’m not really surprised that so many are quick to defend Israel. When seven Palestinians were killed by the IDF while having a picnic on a Gaza beach, the usual excuses were made. The IDF denied the killings, just as now the Israeli Defence Minister is unaware of the latest tragedy.
I recently came across the following excerpt:
A 2004 field study published in the British Medical Journal reported that, in the previous four years, “Two-thirds of the 621 children … killed [by the Israelis] at checkpoints … on the way to school, in their homes, died from small arms fire, directed in over half the cases to the head, neck and chest — the sniper’s wound”.
Wow, that’s what I call courageous!
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 10:26 am
so shrivelled, what should Israel do?
They tried to give control of Gaza back to Egypt. What happened? Oh yes the Egyptians said no way, and build their own wall to keep the Palestinians in.
They tried giving land back. What happened? Gaza was turned into a terrorist state
They tried building a wall to keep the suicide bombers out. What happened? The terrorists turned to missile attacks over the border.
This isnt about what “should” happen in a perfect world. This is about what is happening and how to respond in today’s messy world. Made messier by Iranian interference to try and establish a radical islamic sphere of influence across the whole region.
As Obama said, if someone was sitting on the other side of your border firing missiles indiscriminately at you and your family, sooner or later you have to do something about it
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 10:28 am
ross, those gazans on the beach were blown up by a Hamas bomb. But hey, don’t let the facts spoil your story. If you are going to cite Palestinian propaganda, at least do the decent thing and provide links.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Dear Well-meaning Lefties,
Life is sometimes a choice between bad and worse.
Given that gut-wrenching reality, what should a good leader do?
I say this…
A good leader owes it to his people to firmly and unapologetically (albeit most regrettably) choose bad.
Bad hurts.
Worse hurts more.
In a war with people who live to kill you, there is no good option.
Choosing bad causes pain to innocent people. But less pain.
Choosing bad gets the pain over sooner.
And your option is…?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 10:46 am
One more thing Lefties.
To brand those who choose bad over worse as uncaring is dishonest.
(Not just in war, but in all areas of public policy.)
You are dishonest.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 10:51 am
John,
100 Palestinian innocents killed is bad, two Israeli innocents killed is worse?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Even the UN (hardly a pro-Israel outfit) says 75% of the 600 odd casualties are Hamas fighters. The pro-Palestinian media distort the picture by stating the total casualties and then show footage of dying children in crowded hospitals leaving uniformed readers/viewers to draw the conclusion that almost all casualties are civilian.
Questions for reid, short shrivelled et al
1 – Was it right for the Allies to indiscrimantly bomb civilian populations in Germany and Japan?
2 – Assuming your answer to 1 is no, was it OK for Roosevelt and Churchill to prolong the war and ramp up Allied casualties by not employing disproportionate military means to win?
3 – Name a war in the that 100 years that did not involve collateral civilian deaths?
4 – Name one army in modern history who has ever warned the targets of its attacks before the attacks precisely when and where it would be attacking?
5 – Assuming the West consulted with Hamas as you bleat on about, what part of annihilating Israel do you think the West misunderstood from Hamas’ charter and the pronouncemnets of its leaders and, assuming you were a Western diplomat assessing that threat, what would you advise Israel to do with respect to negotiating for peace with an enemy who whole raison d’etre is to wipe you out?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Kiwi in America,
Most of your points are a very good argument against starting wars in the first place.
I would advise them to undermine Hamas’ support base by ceasing to act the way Hamas says Israel acts. For a start, pull out every settlement and pay reparations to families whose homes and farms were destroyed to create them. Stop preventing food, fuel or medical supplies from getting into the territories. Move the security wall to inside Israel’s territory in those locations where it has cut into Palestinian territory, and pay reparations those those families whose homes and farms were destroyed to construct it. In other words, Israel should stop funding massive Hamas recruitment drives.
Do those things and make a big song and dance about turning over a new leaf with those actions speaking louder than their words, and Israel would radically undermine Hamas’ radical membership, paving the way for Hamas to have to change its charter or face losing popular support entirely.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 11:25 am
You mean pretty much do EXACTLY what the Israelis did in Gaza?
Yup that turned out well didn’t it?
Why is it that you lefties have such short attention spans?
Next.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 11:29 am
radar (180) Vote: 1 30 Says:
January 6th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
“What is interesting is that we are seeing, by and large, the defense of the murder of children. Do people who defend Israel’s bombing of civilian populations believe that Muslim children are less human than non-Muslim children? Are they not entitled to the same rights as non-Muslim children? We know that Hamas hides amongst residential neighbourhoods, that is not in dispute. But Israel has the choice of targeting these people knowing full well that there will be civilian deaths as a result, and they do it again, and again, and again, and again. Where is the outrage at this?…..”
RADAR; it is as simple as this. If we go by what YOU say, we provide the Islamist enemies of the whole modern world, with a guaranteed tactical plan for our own defeat: the use of human shields. It matters not how much more powerful we are; if our enemy has large numbers of people to whom their own lives and the lives of their children and women and old people mean nothing other than noble sacrifices for the cause, they will win and we will lose; and the very standards themselves that you profess are so important to humanity, that come from our tradition; will be lost to humanity forever. Thus it ever is, with the “liberal” left; their adopted moral positions are always totally contradictory; so much for their condemnation of the alleged contradictions to be found in their own one-time dominant culture, Christianity.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 11:37 am
1. Pull out every settlement.
2. Pay reparations to families whose farms and houses were destroyed in building the settlements.
3. Don’t blockade essentials at all.
4. Move the security wall to inside Israel borders.
5. Pay reparations to families whose farms and houses were destroyed in building the wall.
Deity, when you say “exactly what the Israelis did”, how many of the five points above do you think can be checked off?
[DPF: And what do you do after having done all that, and the rockets keep coming?]
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 11:38 am
PhilBest,
What are your thoughts on the use of nuclear weapons?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Short Shriveled and Slightly to the Left (324) Vote: 0 1 Says:
January 7th, 2009 at 10:17 am
“……Im not going to pretend Hamas are the good guys.
Just pointing out that the commentors on this blog (general) belief that Israel are the doing no wrong, is just crap…..”
Short One;
Vote:as I said to Radar above (at 11.29AM): the logical conclusion of your idea of right and wrong, is that all militant Islamism needs to do to conquer the whole world, is use human shields. The Nazis and the Japanese could have conquered the whole world in the 1940′s if the allies had fought under YOUR moral constraints.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Ryan
Lets see now …WW2 was started by …. ah that’s right a genocidal dictator that wanted to dominate the world and wouldn’t surrender until utterly defeated. The Allies option in your lefty nirvana – sit back and allow the glorious Reich to rule Europe as it saw fit? Dislodging such despots requires …war sadly. War that inevitably results in massive civilian casualties – over 40million in the case of WW2.
I guess offering Arafat 97% of what he asked for still wasn’t enough. When will you understand, there are partners for peace in the ME (Egypt and Jordan have proved to honour lasting peace with Israel) but Hamas and Hezbollah do the bidding of Iran and none of them recognise the right of Israel to exist – aside from a complete withdrawal of all Jews to who knows where, what compromise will Hamas really ever accept through a diplomatic process that hasn’t already been tried and utterly failed. They are not amenable to negotiation because they want all of Israel for their people. Like Nazi Germany, only military defeat leads to more level headed thinking
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 11:45 am
That would be relevant if the Palestinians had, like Hitler’s Germany, a military that even remotely rivalled its neighbours.
So, again, following your points, best not to start wars.
I addressed this in my post about what Israel should do. Hamas could not be what it is without the recruitment power Israel’s policies give it.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 11:49 am
And the people would rise up overthrow their Hamas oppressers like the people of Burma [oops no], N. Korea [oh dear no], Zimbabwe [again no], Sudan [no...is there a pattern developing], Belorussia [maybe there is], Tajikistan [but it willl be different in Palestine, yeah right]. Popular support is unneccessary to the mandate of Hamas.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 11:51 am
ryan
My point about Nazi Germany is that wars happen because bad people do enough bad things to cause even democracies to take action.
You are naive in the extreme if you think that, based on Hamas’ stated ambitions (and those of its master Iran) that if Israel did all you suggest they do that they would transform into peaceful and happy neighbours. You belong to the Keith Locke school of foreign policy.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Ryan Sproull:
“…..Do those things and make a big song and dance about turning over a new leaf with those actions speaking louder than their words, and Israel would radically undermine Hamas’ radical membership, paving the way for Hamas to have to change its charter or face losing popular support entirely……”
Ryan, Israel could have spent years already DOING all those things you suggest, and you would never have read about it and it would not have changed the intention of the militant Islamists in the Middle East to destroy Israel. Have you got any idea of just how far Israel has gone in years past, along those lines you now suggest as though they are some original new idea?
THIS GUY already SAID IT; I agree 100%
the deity formerly known as nigel6888 (459) Vote: 1 0 Says:
January 7th, 2009 at 11:25 am
“You mean pretty much do EXACTLY what the Israelis did in Gaza?
Yup that turned out well didn’t it?
Why is it that you lefties have such short attention spans?
Next.”
Ryan, one of the problems we have, is that the whole Islamist culture, regards concessions and favours from their enemies as a sign that Allah is causing their enemies to accept the “truth” and grovel to the “true believers”; it doesn’t mollify them, it encourages them; if they just keep up the great jihad, Allah will grant final and complete victory.
I have reluctantly said this before on this subject; the world has encountered this kind of fanaticism before; and the only way that the world can be rid of it, is by handing it crushing, calamitous, humiliating defeat. If it wasn’t for the A-Bomb, we would in all likelihood still be contending with regular outbreaks of Japanese militancy. It is a paradox, I know, but the very people we handed the crushingest, most humiliating defeat, were transformed from the worlds most murderous and suicidal fanatics, to some of our most trustworthy friends. In fact, I have such a high regard for the Japanese alliance with the USA today, that I hate to drag up this painful history by way of illustration.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 11:58 am
HERE is an interesting prediction from Richard Landes:
http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2008/12/31/get-me-a-massacre-up-next-the-kfar-qana-of-operation-molten-lead/
He predicts, from past experience, that it is about now that Israel will be blamed for some “massacre” that will have been a fabrication from Pallywood from start to finish; and as usual, the media will be all over it and we will never find out from them what a filthy lie the whole thing was……..
“…….Whether by Israeli accident or Hamas engineering, expect a spectacular civilian massacre in the coming days, followed by an orgy of Pallywood photography, amplified by a compliant Western media, and even greater fury in the streets of the Muslim and Western world. It’s in the Hamas playbook… and will be until the media gets sober. Here’s the background, and the obscenity that will probably be played….”
Do follow the link and read the whole thing……….
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
As I said, it would not be Hamas that transformed, but the Palestinian people. Hamas would lose its support base, or it would have to change radically to keep it. It is not naive to realise that if you treat people like animals, they will react violently. On the contrary, it’s naive to think that you can violently destroy a mindset and an organisation created by violence as a reaction to violence.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
I know I have said this before, but I repeat this comment especially for KIKI:
There have been numerous cases around the world, of competing claims by different races or cultures, to the same piece of land. We have bits of land between Germany and France, between Serbia and Bosnia, between Russia and Poland, between India and Pakistan; to name but a few. In some cases, ancient hatreds seem to have been buried and peaceful coexistence achieved, irrespective of the issues of which nation possesses the disputed territory.
In other cases, it has been necessary for a compromise solution to be imposed by the international community through the UN. These compromise solutions involve a physical separation of the incompatible peoples, with the displacement of significant numbers of both. Obviously, the solution designed will attempt to be as fair as possible, and draw borders that require the minimum amount of displacement of peoples. This was the case with the UN-designed “1946 borders” of Israel and Jordan and a “Palestinian State”. However, this solution assumed a peaceful coexistence, and did not allow for defensibility of the borders of the new Jewish State; in fact one would even wonder if the Europeans involved had any intention of the new State surviving at all, when the facts on the ground at the time are considered. I mean, a State that over a significant amount of its length, is 15 miles wide, between the Mediterranean sea and its sworn enemies………get real?
OK, the Jewish State embarrassed its creators by daring to survive, and in the process, taking defensive positions beyond its original borders while reasonably awaiting end-of-conflict non-aggression agreements. Note that NO JEWS remained in “Palestinian” or Arabic areas, while several hundred thousand Arabs remained within the borders of Israel. This should tell us a lot about the moral status of the adversaries; but no, Israel’s detractors choose to focus solely on displaced Arabs, rather than displaced Jews and their legitimate fears in the event that they remained in Arab dominated areas.
The point that I find is crucial, when discussing these issues with New Zealanders, is that almost everyone has no concept of the size of the territories in dispute. This is not France and Germany; or India and Pakistan. We are talking about a State, Israel, that is about the size of the lower North Island of NZ from Wanganui to Wellington, only, at its narrowest point, no wider than the Kapiti Coast. We are talking about territories disputed by the “Palestinians”, that are about the size of the Hutt Valley. Imagine the Kapiti Coast being populated by Jews, and the overlooking ranges being populated by “Palestinians”. Would you deny the Jews the right to hold onto at least the first range of hills overlooking their towns, in the absence of clear, sworn, and demonstrated peaceability on the part of the Arabs? What we are talking about here, is a tacit “Final Solution” that you can either endorse or reject; what you choose says a lot more about you than it does about Israel.
There are surrounding nations that are kin to the “Palestinian” Arabs; Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia; these nations are in total a hundred times the size of Israel, hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. Yet the possibility of the absorption of the displaced “Palestinians” by these nations never comes up; the focus is entirely on 18,000 square km Israel being demanded to relinquish 4,000 square km of strategic territory that virtually cuts it in half, to people who remain avowedly devoted to Israel’s destruction. (NZ is 300,000 square kilometres).
I have said this before and will keep saying it. If the “Palestinans”, and Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia were all Christian, or Buddhist, or Hindu, or anything except Islamic, the descendants of the displaced “Palestinians” would all long since have got themselves a life in the land to which they had been displaced and welcomed with open ams; in many cases merely a few kilometers from where they originally lived. Are there ANY territorial disputes anywhere in the world where Islam is involved, where this has happened? Cyprus? Bosnia? Kashmir? East Timor?
Look at India and Pakistan. How many Hindus in Pakistan? Nix. Nada. Nil. How many Muslims in India? Tens of millions. Which country still has trouble with the other side attacking it, demanding that their rights be acceded to? How many Hindu demands for a right to live in peace in Pakistan where their ancestors came from, backed up with terror attacks in Pakistan? Ever?
The international blindness to the existential threat that is Islam, in favour of an obsession with the so-called crimes of the tiny, imperilled Jewish state, can only be explained by reference to the biblical and the supernatural. It is not explicable on rational, humanist grounds. And the inability of “liberal” “humanists” to acknowledge this, merely strengthens the case against them.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
naive again Ryan.
If Hamas actually cared about the state of its citizens, it might think about not firing rockets at Israel, and maybe getting some of those greenhouses and beach hotels up and running again to provide employment and prosperity.
But, Hamas’ “support base” as you put it is Iran. Hamas is a terror organisation that kills anyone who opposes it. Did you miss how they took power in 2006? Did you not notice how they threw opponents off buildings? Did you miss the extra-judicial executions? How do you think that the “will of the palestinian people” has any bearing on what Hamas is doing?
As Unaha-Clasp put it, the “will of the people” holds very little water with dictators. Particularly when the dictator in question is being bankrolled by someone with no interest whatsoever in peace in Gaza.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
PhilBest,
If you agree with what Deity said, could you answer the question I put to him? If you think Israel has done exactly that or almost exactly that, how many of those five points have they checked off? Have they given reparation? Have they moved the wall? Those are the kind of things that need to be done. Not just slowing down a bit on the reasons for Palestinians to feel and act the way they do, but reversing them.
People get a lot less religious when they don’t have to watch their home be bulldozed, watch their children go hungry, watch their parents get shot. People with nothing to lose are far easier to talk into suicide-bombing than people with a human life to live. It may be that some people would see Israel’s offer of compensation to people whose farms they bulldozed as a sign that Allah is causing them to “grovel to the true believers”, but I believe it would overall far more decrease violence and undermine Hamas’ recruitment and support.
It is out of being humiliated and crushed that terrorist organisations arise, as with Hamas. Palestinians aren’t pre-war Nazi Germany and they aren’t mid-war Imperial Japan. Those nations were absurdly powerful. The Palestinians are fucked. They’ve already been crushingly, humiliatingly defeated. Gaza is not a city of triumph, and those Palestinians who turn to violence don’t do so out of some sense that they’re on the edge of victory. They’re acting from desperation.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Deity,
As I said, I’m not talking about Hamas. I am talking about the Palestinian people, from whom Hamas draws its membership. If Palestinians weren’t so fucked from Israeli policies, Hamas wouldn’t have any luck recruiting members. If Hamas changed, it would not be out of some desire to reflect the people’s will – it would be because it could no longer survive by preaching violence. And if it didn’t change, it would become a tiny minority with a dwindling membership.
Israel’s actions give Palestinians a reason to join Hamas. Different actions would provide different reasons to do different things.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Governments lacking wide popular support have not historically had any problem in finding recruits for security forces and a secret police. It is kind of the “how” of being a government whilst lacking popular support. Why should it be any different in Palestine?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
I’m only talking about the way to end elements that don’t generally exist in liberal democracies. It is somewhat outside the scope of this discussion to address the evils inherent in government and the state in general.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Well Ryan, we know they did 1, 3 and 4. and we know that they negotiated with the then Palestinian government to leave behind a large economic settlement including factories, greenhouses, infrastructure and everything necessary for Gaza to be successful.
On 2 and 5. I don’t know if they sought out families individually. I assume not, but they did negotiate with the palestinian “government” which purported to speak for the citizens and was a party to the agreement on their behalf.
So the “legitimate” government of Gaza entered into a legitimate agreement with Israel, which involved Israel removing all its settlements (remember the protests and sit-ins) even to the point of digging up its graveyards and removing its dead, Withdrawal to its border and leaving the makings of a successful economy behind, to my mind represents reasonable achievement of the goals you set for “peace”.
and then what happened? Did the Gazans decide that this was a reasonable compromise and get on with their lives? Oh yes, the greenhouses and factories and homes were looted and destroyed, and the palestinians went back to war.
Some “desperation”. What are they desperate to achieve again? How special are they? well compare. I Wonder how the 8 million who were displaced in the partition of India from Pakistan in 1948 feel as they desperately hang out in the refugee camps at the border?
What’s that, no refugee camps? Damn those evil Israelis are cunning eh.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Hamas holding all (or most of the guns) give Palestinians a reason to join Hamas and carry out Hamas’ whishes. It is a matter of historical record that numerous militiristic governments have subverted public will.
More likely different actions [by Israel] would provide different reasons [for Hamas] to do the same things.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Ryan, Palestinians arent being ‘fucked by Israeli policies”. Gazans were given Gaza back. There are no Israelis there. Gazans are being fucked by terrorist gangs who exist to fight Israel from within civilian human shields. The terrorists ARE the government of Gaza. End of Story.
the “support” they enjoy is because they control all the money and power in the Strip. You want to eat, you want not to be kneecapped? you support Hamas. You want your kids to get educated, you support Hamas. You want to get a car and nice things? You join Hamas. Its how criminal gangs work.
Hamas are not a spontaneous outburst of desperation as you seem to think. They are the terrorist arm originally of the Muslim Brotherhood (which is why the Egyptians won’t have anything to do with them) but are currently within the control of the Iranian government. Frankly they aren’t dependent on any Palestinian support, and they don’t give a fuck about what happens to civilians in the region. They exist to destroy Israel and through them extend Iranian dominance across the middle-east.
How hard is that to understand?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Deity,
By compensation, I mean reparation – admitting guilt and trying to make it up to the wronged parties. That hasn’t happened. However, as you say, the settlements in Gaza were pulled out, and that was a good thing. I would say that it was a blow to violence in the Palestinians, removing one large cause. But as I said, I’m not talking about Israel just halting its crimes; I’m talking about Israel admitting guilt and trying to make up for it.
And I am also talking long-term. There is no solution that will halt the violence overnight. But this is the only course of action that could halt it in the long term.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
I do not share your view of Hamas as despotic rulers of a population who hates and fears them, which will result in different views on how best to approach the situation.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Oh, I see you are proposing the marginalisation of Hamas in a liberal democracy. Whereas my objections are “outside the scope of this discussion” based as they are on the possibility that Hamas rule in Palestine might not be a liberal democracy.
WTF? Welcome to the “reality based” community.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
I note that the intensity of terrorist attacks from Gaza went up considerably after Israel pulled out. Which suggests that this wasn’t a “blow to palestinian violence”. I wonder what Israel should feel guilty about, except for the temerity to still exist after 1948, 1967 and 1973.
As it happens. I no more share your view that the existence of Israel is a crime than I think that Pakistan and Bangladesh should have remained provinces of India, so shall we just leave it there?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
They are backed by Iran (a state that practices “mandate of heaven” type rule), their foremost aspect is an armed militia and they have for the past two years carried out summary executions of their political opponents (Fatah).
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Unaha-Closp,
You are operating from the premise that Hamas is a despotic organisation ruling by force. I am operating from the premise that Hamas is appealing to a people who have suffered decades of violence. My advice to Israel makes sense from my perspective and makes no sense from yours. Obviously, if Hamas can operate as they currently do in the absence of support from Palestinians, then my advice will have no effect.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Deity,
There’s no need to stoop to the level of putting false words in my mouth. I never said that the existence of Israel is a crime. I was talking about the destruction of Palestinians’ farms and homes in order to build the settlements in Palestinian territories, as I repeatedly said.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
I do not believe they could remain effective in the absence of popular Palestinian support.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Putting that aside, I can agree that Hamas would prefer to have Palestinian support (it means less need for those pesky summary executions). Therefore it is obvious Hamas would seek to generate public appeal in the face of Israelli accomodations. To “prove” that Israel is the enemy Hamas would try to provoke an Israelli response by launching increased rocket attacks. If these attacks did not result in a response, but instead a continuation of more accomodation, then Hamas can point out how effective their attacks have been in winning these Israelli accomodations thus increasing the respect for Hamas amoung the Palestinian population.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Surely that’s true of anyone claiming to have a way to do anything at all. Israel can similarly point to rocket attacks as a need for violence and point to any lack of rocket attacks as a proof that violence works.
But I think there is something more fixed about what it takes to convince someone to try to kill another human being, especially a civilian. The bulldozing of houses (in the past) and the killing of family members don’t just provide Hamas with tools for recruiting civilians – they create civilians who want to retaliate with violence. Even if Hamas disappeared, while Palestinians suffer these kinds of things, there would still be violent Palestinians.
Consider that the first female Palestinian suicide bomber was an ambulance officer who snapped after dealing with too many children killed by the IDF. Whichever terrorist organisation supplied her with explosives merely provided the means; it was the actions of the IDF that provided the motivation.
You can’t defeat violence that is a reaction to violence, by violent means.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
No John, that would be pointless and I don’t do pointless. My central point is that Gaza 09 is not about protecting Israel, it’s about getting Hamas. People who go on endlessly about security issues are looking at the wrong thing. As evidence of that contention I offer this political backgrounder and some elementary logic combined with highlighting some of the shared history we all remember starting from when Hamas was first elected.
In summary:
1) Were there any meaningful sincere negotiations with the newly-elected Hamas leadership? A: No. Q: Why?
2) Are Qassams politically sensitive? A: Yes. Is there an Israeli election in mid-Feb? A: Yes. Observation: How convenient.
3) Are Qassams a strategic threat to state security? A: No
It’s all obvious, is it not, why this is being done. To install Fatah in Gaza, and help some Israelis get re-elected.
When has it ever been seriously tried with the current leaderships, DPF, including of course, the Jerusalem issue? When has it ever been SERIOUSLY tried?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Seriously tried Reid?
Where are your brains?
I don’t mean to be rude but you are behaving like a teenager.
seriously tried, with people who have stated that they want to kill you and your kids wherever you are in the world.
Reid get a grip on reality.
This is not about neighbours arguing over the fence this is about terrorist warfare.
This is about a proxy organ of another sovereign state controlled and led by the Military/Intelligence regime, IE Al Quds of Iran.
While you taking that in, please can you elucidate what Hamas did step by step in their first month to engage Israel in honest dialogue?
Vote:Duh! of course you can’t.
why?
Go read their charter.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
“Consider that the first female Palestinian suicide bomber was an ambulance officer who snapped after dealing with too many children killed by the IDF. Whichever terrorist organisation supplied her with explosives merely provided the means; it was the actions of the IDF that provided the motivation”
What a ridiculous claim. How do you know Ryan- Did someone ask her perhaps?
If this were true there would be many Israeli suicide bombers as well
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
reid
Why? Simple – because when your whole raison d’etre for existence is to destroy the party with whom others hope you will negotiate peace then negotiations are pointless. For crying out loud even Egypt won’t negotiate with Hamas and they closed their border with Gaza tighter than a drum and Egypt aren’t even on the receiving end of any rocket attacks. Not very friendly to a fellow Muslim neighbour is it. What does Egypt know about Hamas that you can’t see?
Israel holds out hope (however forlorn) that Abbas can unite Palestinians under one negotiating voice. Abbas’ more recent pronoucements and conduct leads the US, EU and Israeli governments to conclude that Abbas could negotiate a peace that includes Israel’s right to exist. Why should all the major players encourage negotiation with a two bit group of gangland thugs who have control of but one part of the Palestinian territory near Israel and share the views of Iran and Hezbollah – the total destruction of Israel.
Hamas and Hezbollah have proven that they will fire longer range and more dangerous rockets in as many numbers as they can get their hands on from their Iranian masters. Doing nothing in a democracy like Israel (elections or no elections) is not an option. Would the US sit around and allow Mexico to fire 7,000 rockets into El Paso or San Diego with rockets penetrating further into the US with each passing year with no military response? Any President who sat and did nothing to such a threat would be political dog tucker. Same would be true in any 1st world democracy – how is Israel any different.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
As in Qassams, which aren’t a security threat to the State of Israel… Duh.
Evidence please but regardless of veracity, even more reason to conclude it’s about getting rid of Hamas… Duh
Background to that including facts and circumstances and players, with respect to the dialogue that occurred, are contained in the link I gave, Turpin. Duh.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Family and work colleagues.
There are certainly some very angry family members of victims of Palestinian terrorism. But they have other options available to them.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Geez, KIA, it’s obvious. Hamas raison d’etre, as you call it, is a mere bargaining chip that can be negotiated provided there is a will. It’s not a show stopper unless either party choose to call it such, and if people choose to believe them when they say that, it says more about the hearers naivity vis-a-vis international negotiations, than anything else.
Egypt is a close US ally. The Hamas isolation strategy was and is driven heavily from the WH, against the advice of some in Mossad. Read that link I gave.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
QED Turpin.
Hamas’ leadership is in Damascus. It is funded as an instrument of Iranian state policy.
This is nothing to do with Palestinians. They are collatoral.
Ryan, the election that actually matters here is Obama’s confirmation on 20 January. This is about the Iranians trying to push him to repudiate the US middle eastern policy, and the Israelis trying to get some facts on the ground just in case he does.
Why do you suggest I put words in your mouth. The Israelis pulled every settlement out of Gaza, they even took the graveyards and dead with them (mostly to prevent desecration I suspect). There are no settlements in Gaza, they left much economic infrastructure worth billions of dollars (cf reparations).
What do they have to feel guilt about in Gaza? They did precisely what the world asked. Thus you ratchet the demand. it It is entirely reasonable to extrapolate that you think the guilt Israelis should feel is existential. Why else would you be supporting a war waged by a fascist terror organisation run from Tehran?
I havent seen a single comment from you over the last couple of years which acknowledged that deliberately firing missiles across the border to Israel was in any way wrong. instead with you its justification after mealy mouthed justification.
You aren’t interested in “peace” you are simply on the other side. Face it.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
I see Ryan has family and work colleagues beyond the grave now:
“What a ridiculous claim. How do you know Ryan- Did someone ask her perhaps?
Family and work colleagues.”
you are starting to make yourself more foolish than normal. Perhaps a lie down, and you can return to the jihad refreshed?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
‘Family and work colleagues’ man that to be relied upon. How on earth did someone so mentally unstable get a job as an ambulance officer in the first place – or was she just part of the ‘Pallywood’ ambulance crew?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Deity,
You put words into my mouth when you claimed I considered the existence of Israel to be a crime. There’s no need for that.
You are doing it again when you say that I am supporting a war. I am supporting no wars.
Of course it’s wrong. And if you can find me justifying such terrorism, I’ll be impressed. You may be mixing me up with someone who actually has attempted to justify it.
Just to be clear, I’ll say it again:
The Qassam missiles are aimed at civilians. That is terrorism. Terrorism is wrong.
Please stop that. I am being respectful in my conversation with you, and there’s no need for you to throw those sarcastic unconstructive comments into your posts.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Correction, deity. The effect on Obama is that his ME options have been considerably restricted. Gaza is only the latest in a series of moves heavily orchestrated by the WH. Bush has closed the door on Obama. Whether intentionally or not, fact is, it’s happened. Obama’s curious no-comment stance suggests he’s not too concerned. For those who have followed and understand neocon thinking and strategy, this is obviously a classic one of their moves, if they were responsible. A source I admire emailed me the night of the invasion warning of this Obama strategy, and Paul Buchanon also touched on it awhile ago. Clearly, Iran has nothing whatsoever to do with what the WH did to bring this all about.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Again, Deity, I am being respectful in my conversation with you, and I request that you do the same.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
My point was that the trauma of the work caused the mental instability in the first place. Terrorists don’t appear out of a vacuum. And while terrorism is not justifiable, it is explainable, and until proposed solutions start addressing the causes, there will be no hope of ending it.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Duty calls. I’ll be back tomorrow. Have a good evening, all.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Intriguing reid. Not sure I completely agree, but fascinating to think that the chimpymcbushhitlerhalliburton the stupidest most evil President in US history could do this during his last few months of lameduckdom.
Why Clinton was merely doing victory laps and pardoning criminals during his last six months in office…
I guess the reason I don’t buy is that its not about “neocons”. The US, like all serious powers has interests, that abide and exist for far longer than the electoral cycle. Bush was the unlucky President who got stuck with the ticking parcel of the middle east when the music stopped. I am not sure there’s really a whole lot different that Obama can do. The US still needs oil and the middle east is still deeply unstable and filled with far more money and fanaticism than in the 1990s.
The other reason why I am sceptical ofyour view is that I don’t accept that the middle-eastern actors are passive players in this game, waiting to be positioned by the Americans.
I guess at least we know now that no middle eastern actor is brave enough to take a direct swipe at the US anymore, so they are going with proxies, Mumbai, Israel, I expect an atrocity in Europe next.
So having demonstrated that state terror enablers can be whacked (Afghanistan and Iraq) its important to return to the unfinished business of the non-state proxies. Hezbollah got away with it a couple of years ago because of Israeli nerve failing under the propaganda onslaught. India can’t act against its Islamist extremists because Pakistan is too powerful, so Hamas has to be whacked hard.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
I’m not saying diety who did it, I’m saying that if it WAS the neocon’s then this just fits their modus operandi like a glove.
As I’ve said above, it’s a fact, not arguable in my view, that the WH was heavily involved in scuttling Hamas, early on. Read that link.
Now whether the WH is involved in Gaza 09, I don’t know, no-one has any specific evidence. But again, given the WH were involved early on, it’s not much of a stretch to assume that continued.
Finally, Bush is definitely IMO the worst US pres in history and I’m proud of the fact I’ve been saying that since late 2002. However, from a practical perspective, this operation required no political power from him at all. The WH were already dealing with an Israeli govt perfectly willing to tie Obama’s hands. It would have taken no effort at all to put the wheels in motion to initiate Gaza before Bush left, and question is, was that one of the factors in their timing?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Ryan Sproull:
“…..It is out of being humiliated and crushed that terrorist organisations arise, as with Hamas. Palestinians aren’t pre-war Nazi Germany and they aren’t mid-war Imperial Japan. Those nations were absurdly powerful. The Palestinians are fucked…..”
Ryan, the Japanese in 1945 were fucked, too. But that was not going to stop them fighting on to the last man, woman and child, especially seeing the suicide tactic was proving so successful. The rate at which Kamikazes could sink American aircraft carriers was far higher than the rate at which the Japanese pilots had ever been able to do it the conventional way. But their adoption of that tactic at the point of being fucked, is in NO WAY a justification of their cause up to that point. Sorry. There is an unbridgable gulf between your position and mine on this. I regard the “Palestinians” as at a similar point now, to the Japanese in 1945. A bunch of religious fanatics; fucked, still fighting on, adopting the most unhuman tactics in the history of human conflict, the suicide bomber. The A-Bomb was like divine providence when it came to finishing the threat of Japanese fanaticism once and for all. I repeat what I said before, we would still be fighting it today, otherwise, and we will be fighting Islamist fundamentalist nutters from “Palestine” to the Atlantic and the Pacific until we hand them just as big a finishing-off. I would have thought someone as judgemental of religious fanaticism as you are, would have been abundantly clear on the world’s current worst manifestation of it.
OK, you argued that Japan had been hugely powerful and glorious for a time. But surely it is obvious that the only difference between the glory days of Japan and the glory days of Islam, is a matter of timescale. The “Palestinians” within the last 100 years, were the Islamic Caliphate sharia law masters of the Jewish “Dhimmi”. It is not a question of them not being able to handle humiliating defeat in Gaza, it is a matter of them being unable to handle the loss of their historical superiority and treat the JEWS as equal human beings entitled to live NOT as sharia law “Dhimmis”. Again, I am at a loss having to explain this background to someone as intelligent as you. Jastowns/Sonic/Kiki/Paul you are NOT.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Update: Just saw this Asia Times article, which backs up my WH contention.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Ryan Sproull (1201) Vote: 0 0 Says:
January 7th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
As it happens. I no more share your view that the existence of Israel is a crime than I think that Pakistan and Bangladesh should have remained provinces of India, so shall we just leave it there?
“Deity,
There’s no need to stoop to the level of putting false words in my mouth. I never said that the existence of Israel is a crime. I was talking about the destruction of Palestinians’ farms and homes in order to build the settlements in Palestinian territories, as I repeatedly said….”
Ryan, I will go right out on a limb here, and say that under International Law, any other nation but Israel that had captured a piddly 4,000 square kms of territory off other nations (Egypt and Jordan) that didn’t want those territories back when they ultimately signed the peace deal terminating the state of war that had existed up till then; would have long since got away scot free without any international condemnation whatsoever had they merely annexed those territories and settled them and done whatever they liked with them. The borders of Europe are RIFE with such cases, and much larger amounts of territory are involved, but no-one is protesting the movement of Frenchmen, for example, into areas that historically have been disputed between them and Germany. The Germans have just bloody got over it – why? – because they got a big enough beating. And furthermore, we are talkin about such a pathetically small amount of land and such pathetically small distances of population displacement, in the case of the “Palestinians”, it is akin to moving the population for a hydro dam project, as the CCP has notably done on a much larger scale.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
AH, Reid; you raise “The Jerusalem Issue”. Tell me, what is the historic claim of all Jews to Jerusalem; what is the historic claim of all MUSLIMS to Jerusalem (because that is the issue THEY make of it, not the issue of their having occupied it); what is the historic claim of all Jews to Bethlehem; what is the historic claim of the “Palestinians” to Bethlehem; what is the historic claims of all Christians to Constantinople? And who do YOU think is being reasonable over their historic claims and who is being unreasonable?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
I have no real idea of those answers, Phil, because I don’t care.
It’s enough for me to know that Jerusalem is a key sticking point. Precisely why is less interesting to me.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Last point for Ryan, regarding what the “martyrs” friends and relatives and workmates say the person died for. Has it occurred to you that at least some of these “martyrs” were coerced or tricked into dying, and that what is said about them afterwards is not a matter on which they have any input? Actually, the whole “dying a martyr and going to paradise” thing IS a cruel trick.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Killing Their Own
By Jacob Laksin
FrontPageMagazine.com | 1/6/2009
“From reprimands of “disproportionate response” to condemnations of civilian casualties, Israel’s military offensive in Gaza has drawn de rigueur denunciations from the international community. Less noticed is that while Israel has taken great pains to avoid innocent deaths in Operation Cast Lead, at great peril to its fighting men and women, Hamas vigilantes have spent recent days deliberately assaulting and killing their fellow Palestinians, just as they have done for years.
According to the Jerusalem Post, since the beginning of the Israeli offensive, more than 75 Gaza Palestinians have been shot in the legs or have had their hands broken; more than 35 have been executed by Hamas operatives who accuse them of being Israeli “collaborators.” Of course, Gaza is not teeming with Israeli spies and most of Hamas’s victims are not only not traitors but likely helped vote the terrorist group into power in the January 2006 legislative elections. Instead, Hamas’s campaign of homegrown terror is the latest example of the terrorists turning on their Palestinian compatriots – a brutal but seldom-discussed cycle of violence in which Palestinians emerge as their own worst enemy.
Hamas’s fratricidal tendencies date back to its 1987 founding. In her 1996 book God Has Ninety-Nine Names, Judith Miller, a former New York Times bureau chief in Cairo, reported that within a few years of its official existence, Hamas had “proved more deadly to Palestinians than to Israelis.” Between 1987 and 1993, the years of the first Palestinian intifada, Hamas killed some 26 Israelis but also many of the 800 Palestinians murdered in those years for being alleged Israeli “collaborators.” In 1992 alone, according to Middle East analyst Mitchell Bard, some 200 Palestinians were killed by other Palestinians – more than double the number of Palestinians killed fighting with Israeli security forces.
Though murdered on the accusation of aiding Israel, most were not collaborators at all. “Rather,” as Judith Miller noted, “they were women who wore slacks and other ‘prostitutes,’ as Hamas called unveiled women; they were alcoholics, drug users, teachers with whom Hamas disagreed, Marxists, atheists, a Darwinist, Freudians, members of the Rotary and Lions Clubs – which Hamas’s charter called Jewish spy organizations – and, in particular, supporters of the PLO, Hamas’s main rival for power among Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories.”
Even among the “guilty,” the definition of collaboration often had more to do with Hamas’s hatred of Jews than any act of betrayal. To have any contact with Jews was to risk being judged a “collaborator.” So it was that, in October 1989, a Palestinian father of seven was reportedly stabbed to death in the West Bank city of Jericho for the unpardonable crime of selling “floral decorations” to Jews building a traditional succah dwelling.
These targeted killings of Palestinians marked not a departure from Hamas’s founding vision but its fulfillment. As an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas has always held the Brotherhood’s position that its jihad will be successful only after its rivals – real or imagined – are eliminated from within…..”
READ THE WHOLE THING:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.aspx?GUID=61CDF0F5-1D10-4E6F-8289-A0E91EF4F5D5
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Sorry everyone for making so many comments over the last few days, back to normal on Monday. I’m also on Reid Summer Time one of which consequences is that I suddenly don’t give a fuck about anything, so please forgive me if I’ve said things I wouldn’t normally say over the last few days…
1) No
Vote:2) No. It was wrong of Roosevelt to fall in love with Stalin, consequence of which was the allied broad-front strategy which allowed USSR to occupy Eastern Europe, against Churchill’s protest and clear warning. If Roosevelt hadn’t done that, Cold War would not have happened. Point is, what’s your point? That disproportionality should be an accepted fact in unconstrained military exchanges vs largely unarmed (and mostly small-arms when armed) civilian populations in built-up areas? Permit me to both disagree and agree. It’s a question of definition. WP shells even for smokescreens aren’t a good look and are quite unnecessary, unless you wanted to add to the many and varied signals already being beamed to a receptive and growing segment of world opinion; that you were prepared to be implacably ruthless. Few in that receptive segment would be deterred by fear of confrontation, so in my calculation, I can see absolutely zero PR upside and plenty of downside, for the use of WP in a built-up area. Furthermore, acceptable technology alternatives (for smokescreens of whatever) are, I bet, readily available. Has the IDF ever exercised constraint? No. Would exercising constraint hurt its ME image? No.
3) You know the Jehovah Witnesses use a non-Gregorian calendar and based on that they calculate that WWI began at the very changeover between the 19th and 20th centuries. WWI was the first war in which civilians became heavily involved and WWII there were no constraints, they(we) became officially and repeatedly and specifically, targetted. It’s been the bloodiest century in human history. The new one isn’t looking all that great right now either, is it.
4) I bet they don’t warn the priority targets. That’d just be stoopid wouldn’t it. It’s a very good PR tactic to heavily imply they’re really doing that. So why do they insist on shooting themselves in the foot with WP, at the very same time?
5) It’s not an issue, Hamas charter is a negotiating chip the WH chose never to respond to. Why is that?
January 7th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
reid (1636) Vote: 0 0 Says:
January 7th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
“I have no real idea of those answers, Phil, because I don’t care.
It’s enough for me to know that Jerusalem is a key sticking point. Precisely why is less interesting to me.”
Reid, let me enlighten you why Jerusalem has such deep religious significance to Muslims. I presume you understand that it had deep religious significance to Jews centuries before Mohammed was born; however, Mohammed had a dream when he was asleep down in Medina one night next to his nine-year-old wife, long before any Islamic conquests of territory actually took place; he dreamed that a winged horse came to him and he climbed on its back and it took him to Jeruslalem.
Accordingly, he instructed his followers as part of holy writ, that Allah had given his followers Jerusalem.
I kid you not.
Islam has numerous “holy places”; Mecca is no.1; Medina is no.2; Baghdad is no.3; and Jerusalem is no.4.
To the JEWS, Jerusalem is no.1.
If Christians cared about such things, Bethlehem would be high on the list and Constantinople would feature high up somewhere.
It is laughable that the religious fanaticism element underlying the problems presented to us by militant Islam all over the place, not just “Palestine”, is largely ignored by people who profess themselves to have a strong judgement of religious fanaticism when it involves people they describe as “The Christian equivalent of the Taleban” when there is truly no comparison.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Yes, I understand a little about the religious issues, Phil.
Jerusalem is a great issue, on both sides. It’s an ancient, long-standing issue. If you want ME peace, it needs to be addressed.
How can one religion or the other claim exclusive ownership to Jerusalem, to the Temple Mount and all other areas?
Is it possible, or just?
I’m interested in what this means to politics, since both parties are diametrically opposed. If anyone thinks Jews=Right and Muslims=Wrong on this issue, they don’t even begin to understand.
I’m not suggesting you think that, at all, Phil.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
INteresting analysis from a Jewish, ex-army Professor in the Guardian. But of course, he couldn’t know nearly as much about all this as the experts on the MIddle East in here…http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
reid
As expected, a series of rambling non answers. Perhaps it falls into the category of “things I wouldn’t normally say”
Your comments on the Front Page article just posted by Philbest or does that trample all over your “Hamas as benign partner who can be negotiated with” meme.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Reid is following the Christian line of Israel is no longer important as we have Jesus. Luther and revisionists have throughout the recent centuries played down the important of Jerusalem and Israel from a Christian perspective to the point that some churches are now completely anti-Israel.
Even in the paper today some wacko stated that the descecration of the Rabin memorial is no different than Jesus so called rightous act of throwing the “money leaders” out of the temple. Yes those nasty Shylock Jews.
What is the Dome of the Rock built on Reid? Yes the Temple, which at the time was the largest single construction site in the world.
How about you go to Saudi Arabia and tell them you want to open Mecca up to all religions and when/if you get back we can discuss the future of Jerusalem.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Problem is Phil the Christian religion is so fabricated by man that they have no real holy places.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Any Catholics online that want to discuss the hypocrisy of their religion and yesterdays behaviour?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
I just thought the “Front Page article” was mere propaganda with no insight, KIA. You mean it has some merit? Where?
So what’s the point, SR?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
At the moment Israel allows access by all faiths to the areas in Jerusalem.
Could you say the same would happen under Catholic or Muslim control?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Phil Best – Yes you are right, that Jerusalem is the No 1 religious site for Jews, it has huge emotional and spritual pull for all Jews regardless of their level of religious observance. Jerusalem is mentioned in the Torah literally dozens and dozens of times reminding Jews of their historical, cultural and religious connections going back thousands of years. A common Jewish saying is “If I forget thee o’ Jerusalem….” a reminder to all Jews of their ties and ancestery to the region.
Their is no way Jerusalem should be shared with the Arab/Muslim world, they have Mecca and Medina, and as I understand it Jerusalem is barely mentioned inthe Koran and when it is acknowledged it is painted as a desolate place where nomads collected supplies and moved on to more fruitful areas. Can you imagine the fuore inthe Muslim world if any other faith demanded a share of Mecca and Medina out of political spite rather than true religious yearning?
Can you imagine that dickhead priest Gerard Burns who desecrated the Rabin memorial with red paint, allowing Catholic Rome and the Vatican to be handed over passively to Muslims because Muslims were in Sicily hundred of years ago? No he and the Catholic world, quite rightly, would fight to the bitter end to retain the exclusive heart and soul of Catholicism.
No other religious group, except the Jews, are being forced or pressured to ‘share’ a holy city.
By the way, can Catholics let me know what they think of their vandalising ignorant and anti-semetic priest Gerard Burns. I could never imagine a Rabbi of any stripe, daubing a picture of the Pope with ‘blood’ in the name of the victims of peadophile Catholic priests.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
“Their is no way Jerusalem should be shared with the Arab/Muslim world, they have Mecca and Medina”
sally, in my limited understanding, one of the disputed possessions in Jerusalem is the rock from which Muslims believe, Muhammed ascended to heaven.
For some reason, Christians don’t seem to care, so much. Muslims and Jews however are fanatical, both ways.
Isn’t that evident from history?
I always thought that fanatical, ever, isn’t right. It invalidates the righteousness of the argument.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Sally that saying is one of my favourites “….let my right hand forget what its supposed to do.”
This is what I posted on another thread.
I’ve sent the following email to the Catholic Church today.
“I wish to register my absolute disgust at the vandalism and descecration of the Rabin memorial in Wellington by Father Burns.
While I respect any person’s right to peaceful protest there is no justification for this act against a Nobel Peace Prize winner, even worse when committed and celebrated by a supposed community leader.
To compound this the Catholic Church seems to be condoning this act through their continued silence.
My hope is that the Catholic Church will show some leadership in condemning this gross and wholey unjustified criminal behavious.”
I encouragement everyone else to send messages of disgust at their silence to communications@catholic.org.nz
Does anyone know if a complaint has been laid with the Police for vandalism, graffiti and descecration of a public place and memorial? All the evidence is on camera and he has admitted the crime.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Reid. A lot of Islam is based on Judaic principles as it came along many centuries after Christianity even. This is why Jesus is a prophet and Avraham patriach of the mulsims as well.
It is highly likely that muslim scholars knew the importance of the Temple Mount to Jews and that it was an extremely holy place so they added it into the story.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Sally if they’re thinking of saintifying Pope Pious then anything is possible.
Reid do you know what the Catholic Crusaders did when they captured Jerusalem? Massacred every Jew and Muslim of all ages.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Southern Raider – cheers for the church email. here’s an extract from mine
“Is this to be assumed that the Catholic Church condones vandalism whenever they may disagree with the actions of others? I obviously strongly disagree with what Burns has done, does this give me the right to now vandalise Catholic Church property?”
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Personally I think he should be subject to the full force of the law, SR, however I fear the idiocy he apparently suffers will reduce unfortunately, his perception of the full magnitude of his said idiocy. What an idiot. To desecrate the plaque of the only person capable of achieving ME peace, murdered by a right-wing Jewish lad.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
That was in the “olden days” I assume, KIA? Relevance?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
SR – many thanks for the support. I posted on another thread that ex-spokesman for NZ/Israel , David Zwartz has laid a formal complaint with the police. And I most cetainly will be emailing the Catholic Church, thanks for passing on the email address. I urge others to do the same and Catholics to lean on the hierachy.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
Reid if it had of been a memorial to Sharon I would still have been pissed, but could understand people have vastly different views of the man.
However Rabin is not someone that should be insulted under any circumstances.
The prick then had the gall to say that he only one the Nobel Prize because he converted to peace late in lfe.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
SR – you can’t be serious about the saintifying or whatever they do of Pope Pious, pretty please tell me you are joking???
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
And why do some people, imagine that “vice-versa” is never even a possibility?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
I also read in the paper in a very small sound bite that a car loaded with fuel has been driven in a Paris Shul. Several poeple where injured, but no mention on the news. This will continue and escalate.
Name that last time a Jew damaged or blew up a Mosque (not being used a weapons dump).
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
I totally agree, SR. You know, I used to call Sharon a butcher, but in the last days of his office, he proved himself to be a true Israeli patriot and I do now and always, have saluted him for that.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
New Zealand religous leaders have spent a lot of effort over the last 10 years prompting inter-faith dialogue.
I can see the Catholic Church is fast driving a wedge into that initiative.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Sally the Vatican is already working on the process and its expected to happen in the next couple of years.
The new Pope (and most Catholics) refuse to visit Yad Vashem because it has a section criticising the amazing silence from the Vatican in WW2.
I believe Jewish leaders and Israel has complained to the Vatican about the sainthood, but they have been told to stop spreading lies about Pious and they intend to continue as planned.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
I posted on Gerard Burns, the Vandal in Holy Orders
http://adamsmith.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/12334/
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Watch out the grave stones will be next.
Adam I encourage you to send an email to the Catholic Church in NZ.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Reid I see a missle from Gaza got the furthest yet and into another previously unhit town. No threat to Israel though aye?
I was thinking that if the Israeli kindergarten yesterday hadn’t been evacuated in time when the rocket hit and the 30 kids plus teachers killed would that have changed the medias reporting angle or would they ve dismissed as just some more Jews?
Also to all those that say part of the settlement process should be Israel paying money to the Arabs. Does Israel get any compensation for all the Jews it had to resettle including from Arab states, Ethiopia and Russia?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
Reid and co. Some pictures for you that the media won’t show, but don’t worry Israel should just put up with it.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/israelnewsphotosdotcom/
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Here’s your opportunity to post a comment and tell the Church blog what you feel about Burns actions
http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=10984
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Patrick the Mickey Do’s take 24 hours to post your comments.
I’m going to kill the guy that posted the first one.
When are these left wing fuckwits going to learn what Nazi’s where actually like. Have any of these wankers ever been to Aushwitz?
I heard on the radio today Minto admitted never even being any where near Israel yet he seems to think hes an expert on the place.
Must kill list
Vote:- John Minto
- Keith Locke
- Father Gerard Burns
January 7th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
The truth about the recent “UN school” attack
Hamas and UN spokesmen rushed to the media with reports of a UN school being bombed in spite of the fact that it was being used as a shelter for civilians.
The school was being used by Hamas to fire mortars against Israel.
The IDF Spokesmen released a video of mortars being fired from the school before Israel shot back.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
and
No theat to Israel, SR? Pull the other one. I’ve ALWAYS said Qassams are terrible, politically; insignificant, strategically. Don’t you know the difference?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Any comments on the MSM making up bullshit about the “UN School”?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
Looks Father Burns is on the wrong side and should be more worried about whats happening outside the Vatican.
“Vatican alarmed over burning of Israel flags
In another story, The Times Online reports the Vatican has expressed alarm over the burning of Israeli flags by Muslims protesting against Israeli actions in Gaza during Muslim prayers staged outside Italian cathedrals.
Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican Council for Justice and Peace, said he was not disturbed “by prayer as such.” If Muslims wished to come to St Peter’s to pray, he would not object, the cardinal said. “Prayer always does good.”
However prayers held recently outside the Duomo in Milan and the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna, with thousands of prostrate Muslims facing Mecca, had been accompanied by flag burning which was not only anti Israeli but anti Semetic, with protesters carrying banners depicting the Star of David alongside the Nazi swastika. “What matters is the spirit in which one prays, and prayer excludes hate” Cardinal Martino said.
Bishop Ernesto Vecchi, vicar general of the Bologna diocese, said the Muslim prayers were “not just prayers but a challenge, not so much to the basilica itself as to our democratic system and culture.” Bishop Vecchi suggested the staging of mass prayers outside Christian churches in Italy was a deliberate move “on orders from afar” as part of a strategy of “Islamisation” of Europe. “
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
And your opinion, SR, of the effect of Gaza on degrading or assisting this strategy, is what?
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
reid
Vote:So Hamas’ murderous tendencies are irrelevant? Not surprised you would turn a blind eye. By calling it propoganda is that your code for denying these things happen?
January 7th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
No
Really?
Why of course, KIA, I like to be…. mysterious.
Vote:January 7th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
“the Mickey Do’s take 24 hours to post your comments.”
It’s probably moderated by ‘the BIG guy’
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 11:05 am
PhilBest,
I don’t believe that you’re describing as background is an all-encompassing objective fact of the situation. The people alive today, and since British rule in Palestine, have never personally experienced being “Islamic Caliphate sharia law masters”, and it’s in the context of their lives that I interpret their behaviour. I don’t believe they are bitterly harking back to something in their cultural and ancestral memory.
I do see your point about similarities between end-of-war Japan and the current Palestinians, though I still think there are relevant differences. The Japanese government was fighting to control other countries’ land. The Palestinians have fought to regain their own land. The Japanese were occupying other people’s land; the Palestinians’ land is occupied. The equivalent of dropping a nuclear bomb on Palestine may well “humiliate the pride that keeps them fighting”/”finally squash their last remnants of hope” (depending on how you view the situation).
If that was the only option, I would be more favourable to it, but I do not believe there is. Being a fan of peace, I don’t necessarily enjoy the prospect of the serenity of a graveyard. My own study of the situation leads me to believe that serious attempts at peaceful reconciliation have been hindered by elements on all three sides (if we include US support for Israel), and that Israel has never spoken of reparation – as reparation would imply guilt.
Regarding the settlements, I am fairly certain they were always illegal under international law, and it was only when the US withdrew its unconditional support for them that Israel was compelled to dismantle any. Israel has also continued to built more Israeli homes in the West Bank after removing Gaza’s settlements.
And finally, yes, it’s possible that the family and colleagues of the ambulance officer suicide bomber lied about her experiences with Palestinian victims being what caused her to snap. It is possible they were covering up for her long and involved plan. I just do not think that is likely.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Reason #1533 that prevents peace in the middle east.
Here’s a link to the Ft Lauderdale protest organised ironically enough by ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism ) Coalition
You can plainly see and hear the Palestinian protesters calling to ‘Nuke Israel”, then some Arab woman calling “Go Back to the Ovens” – “You need a bigger oven”
Quite sick really
Vote:
January 8th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Reason # 1534 Both Palestinian parties are committed to genocide.
Fatah Constitution Article 12;\”Complete Liberation of Palestine and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence”
Fatah Constitution Article 19\ “Armed struggle is a strategy and not a tactic, and the Palestinian Arab Peoples armed revolution is a decisive factor in the liberation fight and in uprooting the Zionist existence, and this struggle will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished and Palestine is completely liberated”
Hamas Charter Article 7\ quoting the Prophet Mohammed “The day of judgement will not come until the Moslems fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him”
Vote:
January 8th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Yes the predictable rise in anti-semitism is a nice side-benefit for those who direct the Israeli and US grand strategy.
I say that of course because those people don’t act for the good of those nations but for the worst. You watch, when the dust settles on Gaza 09, Israel will be worse off. Hamas will be stronger than ever, the IDF will once again, be hated. How is this good?
This not only happens to Israel (e.g. Lebanon) but also the US, time and time and time again. Some people still think this is accidental.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Thinking people generally understand right from wrong. Unfortunately the left wing bias MSM has far too much influence in flavouring a story, or an issue to suit the ‘cause’ knowing many of their viewers and readers will agree, just because they accept the view of the MSM
Case in point is the selective reporting in much of the terrorism by Hamas in Israel.
The western general public don’t like conflict, they don’t have the stomach to sort out a problem, and it’s just too painful. They sooner sweep it under the carpet and hope that it goes away. IOW – its just convenient
Most people wont face the facts that these Islamic terrorists wont go away
You read the Fatah and Hamas grand strategy, so maybe you can explain, and provide equal evidence of any “Israeli and US grand strategy”?
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
“Most people wont face the facts that these Islamic terrorists wont go away”
But that’s not the point, is it. The point is, does Israel deal with these people in the most efficient way, on balance? The answer, to me, is an unequivocal NO on every single important measure.
“You can explain, and provide equal evidence of any “Israeli and US grand strategy”?”
One of them is to divide Iraq into three: Sunni, Shite and Kurdish. Israel’s been very friendly with the Kurds, all the time since 2003. Guess why? The Kurds occupy almost all of Iraq’s significant oilfields. You want evidence, it’s all over the place. There are many other grand strategies in play. Open your eyes.
My central point is that consistently the leadership, elected and otherwise, of both Israel and the US, do things that aren’t in the national interest. Either they’re totally incompetent or it’s by design. You choose. Let me give you an example. Some people think Clinton was great because they think it was a time of prosperity and peace. Bullshit. Highly suspicious things happened with Chinese military espionage during Clinton’s time in office. The US did things like transfer an entire restricted factory to China. The legacy codes were stolen by a US-Chinese citizen. This gave China the neutron bomb. Metallurgy secrets for MIRV warheads were stolen, suddenly, the Chinese warheads stopped disintegrating on re-entry. We had the curious E-6 Intruder force-down. You also had Clinton’s political connections with Chinese nationals. You take it how you like but to me all these events and more, taken together, simply don’t add up to mere coincidence.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Reid, my main point about Jerusalem, is that at the point at which Mohammed started to have fantasies about it, the Jews had already lived there for thousands of years.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong Phil but that’s not undisputed history.
So we come back to square one.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Ryan Sproull, thanks for the fascinating debate. I think we understand where we each stand on this issue now. I would hasten to comment that I certainly do not mean that Gaza needs a nuclear bomb on it. Japan did not need to be nuked over its entire length and breadth to make it stop fighting; it and Germany had been heavily bombed conventionally though, but note that a land invasion of Germany would similarly have been unnecessary had they been faced with the nuclear factor.
I would also hasten to add that the process of making these people trustworthy friends involved getting their unconditional surrender, first, and THEN being generous to them. But endless generosity to the “Palestinians” and Islamist regimes generally, under the status quo, is as I say, only interpreted by them as Allah causing their enemies to serve them; it is not something for which they will ever show any sign of gratitude until they have first been unconditionally defeated.
The position of innocent and ignorant masses of people in all this is tragic. One hopes that this technological age will grant nations like Israel and the US to acheive the kind of defeat necessary with the deaths of the maximum number of appropriate people and the minimum number of inappropriate people. Israel’s achievements to this end already, are unparallelled in human history. If they keep this up, they will actually succeed in destroying all the appropriate people and leaving the great majority of inappropriate people alive, something which no-one has ever acheived before in equivalent conditions. As recently as 1980, whole blocks of Gaza would have had to be flattened to kill as many Hamas “soldiers” as Israel has, and that has generally been what has happened when other nations are involved.
Did you read that story about why Syria has no problems with the Muslim Brotherhood any more? Because they flatten whole towns where the Muslim Brotherhood is based; Syrians are actually more afraid of their own government’s response than they are of the Muslim Brotherhood’s goons.
What I DO think that militant Islam everywhere needs, is to be confronted with clear Western resolve to fight, not appeasement and apologia. It didn’t work for Neville Chamberlain and it won’t work today. All that does is postpone and worsen the eventual total confrontation. The trouble is, and this is where you and I differ, is where a dynamic exists of itself, like Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and Naziism, but some people assume that that dynamic is something that can be “bought off”, or worse, is a legitimate response to “injustice”.
Maybe you haven’t read much on the ideological underpinnings of Islamism, or you prefer not to believe what you have read. Where is the disconnect? Do you think that people like Sayyeed Qutb and Ruhollah Khomeini did not MEAN what they wrote; or do you think that the people who read them today don’t MEAN to take them that seriously, or that people like Hassan Nasrallah and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad don’t MEAN what they say…..? Not to mention the way that these people take the writings of their original leader Mohammed himself.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
reid (1652) Vote: 0 0 Says:
January 8th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
“Correct me if I’m wrong Phil but that’s not undisputed history.
So we come back to square one.”
AH. So that is where you stand. OK, I agree to differ with you there. I believe that the Jewish King David was based in Jerusalem and that Solomon built a temple there, and all that stuff. I thought THAT was undisputed history, like Auschwitz (OK, the evidence is a lot older, but……….); and that the disputing of the history is a recent phenomenon; both are disputed by people like David Irving and Ruhollah Khomeini and Hassan Nasrallah and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Hmmmmm………
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Unconditional surrender was a strategic disaster in WWII, Phil.
Yeah but that only works when the organisation is not seen by the people to be ‘of the people.’ Some perhaps all, of Afghan’s warlords come into this category, but not Hamas. Hamas was elected because it runs schools, health clinics and aid operations, all over it’s area of influence. It’s not just rocketeers… All Gaza 09 has done, is hardened that grassroots support.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
No the point is, Phil, that Jews weren’t the ONLY ones living there during those times you speak of.
Following the diaspora, as I understand it, the modern-day Palestinians occupied the same land they’d always occupied. Jews also continued living there, they just weren’t the ones in charge. I understand it’s also the case that those Jews who continued living there did so peacefully and in peace.
I thought that was the story…
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
“One of them is to divide Iraq into three: Sunni, Shite and Kurdish. Israel’s been very friendly with the Kurds, all the time since 2003. Guess why? The Kurds occupy almost all of Iraq’s significant oilfields. You want evidence, it’s all over the place. There are many other grand strategies in play. Open your eyes”
No evidence huh?
I’m sure your eyes are open, but you still cant see much with your head so far up your arse. And even if you are correct, do you think it will make one iota of difference to the stated charters of the Hamas and Fatah?
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Phil, just further to your reference to the Muslim Brotherhood. The excellent BBC doco ‘The Power of Nightmares’ has some interesting history on that movement. Apparently the Egyptians, I think it was, imprisoned the founder for some reason. They did thinks like lock him up naked in a cell for hours with attack dogs.
Brutal. Excellent doco though, if you haven’t already seen it.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
“do you think it will make one iota of difference to the stated charters of the Hamas and Fatah?”
You asked for an example of an Israel-US grand strategy, Patrick, I gave you one. What’s the matter?
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
“No evidence huh?”
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Patrick if you don’t know how to gather your own evidence on the specifics of that grand strategy to satisfy yourself one way or the other as to its veracity, I can’t help you.
Furthermore, I’m on Reid Summer Time which means I do nothing I don’t feel like, and I’m not going to do someone else’s work for them.
I don’t care whether you think its bullshit or fact. You choose.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
You made the claim, back it up!
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
No, you discredit it.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
well if you cant back it up, or provide evidence then I think you doing a fine job of that on your own
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Patrick, let me repeat:
“I don’t care whether you think its bullshit or fact. You choose.”
See, whether or not you think the grand strategy example I gave is true, matters not a whit in relation to my central contentions on this thread. I’m sorry, I can’t explain it any more clearly than that.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
PhilBest,
Yeah, I realise you didn’t mean a literal atomic bomb – just a defeat of a similar magnitude.
Let’s say that total defeat in some meaningful sense is possible in this current situation, and it is followed with generosity and becoming friends. Israel, as the victor, will dicate the terms of that friendship, and where those terms involve competing interests, Israel’s interests will be favoured over Palestinian interests. This is different from the US and Japan or Germany in terms of geographical distance.
Now, for those people – Palestinian or otherwise – who believe that the Palestinian people have a right to return to the land of their birth (let’s for the moment speak only of those families whose immediate ancestors were living on the land that is now Israel in 1967), any arrangement that does not involve that right being recognised will be a wrong.
Obviously, in the case of the total defeat of the Palestinian people, Israel will have the power to deny Palestinians’ return to any of that land that Israel gained control of through military conquest. The question is, does might make right? And should the rest of the world encourage might making right?
I don’t think it’s sensible to expect that the generosity Israel will show to its new friends the Palestinians will extend to granting them anything like the rights they have fought for.
I know – you can say they lost the fight, they’re the losers, that’s what losing means.
But if your hoped-for outcome is Israel having some kind of meaningful military victory over what is essentially a civilian population with militia resistance, resulting in an obedient group of people with whom a new “friendship” can arise, the friendship will necessarily mean the end of almost all of those rights they had been fighting for in the first place.
Wouldn’t that send a message to the world that might makes right? Won’t the moral of the story be, “If the Palestinians had had bigger guns, they could have got more of what they wanted”?
There are two ways of looking at the situation. One asks what is right, and the other asks what is possible to demand if you have enough military superiority. I am assuming that you don’t believe the Palestinians have many of the rights attributed to them by myself and many others, which is convenient for you, because what is realistically the likely outcome of Israel’s military superiority happens to coincide with what you think is morally right. For those of us who believe that the Palestinians have been wronged by Israel, what is realistically the likely outcome of Israel’s military superiority is at odds with what we believe is just.
For you, the hypothetical generosity that Israel will show to the Palestinians following their total defeat is just that – generosity, undeserved kindness. For me, the hypothetical generosity that Israel will show to the Palestinians following their total defeat is not generosity, but a shadow of what the Palestinians justly deserve – token partial reparations that will not even be called by the name.
The thing is, Israel/Palestine doesn’t exist in a vacuum either. There are more than two parties here. There is the whole world. And for all Israel’s military superiority over the Palestinian militias, the fact that the rest of the world (the US in particular) can prevent that outcome means that the “might makes right” result can only come about with the complicity of the rest of the world.
You see it as a war of two sides, like with Japan. I see it as an occupation, with a resistance. The resistance has adopted tactics I find morally abhorrent (more so even than violence in general), which is intentionally targeting civilians. That is terrible, but it doesn’t make it a war, and doesn’t stop it being an occupation.
That’s why I also question the idea of military victory or defeat in this situation. You can be victorious or defeated in a war, but what counts as victory or defeat in an occupation? I’m not saying nothing does – I’m genuinely asking the question.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
The Russian Federation, South Ossetia and Iran.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Reid. I believe central to this entire middle-east issue is sorting the truth from the bullshit. I recall we have both made statements about the MSM on that one– so we probably agree.
For you to make the claim you have does little to sort the truth from the bullshit, and at this point they are little more than unsubstantiated inflammatory blame claims. You are therefore actually as guilty as the MSM and adding to the problem
Notwithstanding that, Tell me what this ‘grand strategy’ of Israel and the USA has to do with Hamas and Fatah committing to wipe Israel off the map? – Nothing, because they have always been committed to it.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
The purpose of giving people an example of grand strategy, Patrick, was to illustrate my point that it’s a curious but true fact that the leadership of both Israel and the US do things time after time that run against national interest. If you or anyone else thinks that it would be a good idea for Iraq to split into 3 and for Israel to gain access to most of Iraq’s oil via the Kurds, then be my guest.
People might argue that of course it would be good for Israel, since she gets one of her two largest security risks taken out AND gets all the oil. I imagine this may even be the main reason why some of the Israeli politicians are going along with it. I understand that line of argument but disagree that such an event would be on balance, good for Israel, looking at long term ME relationships. Anyway, it may or may not ever come about, but one of the evidential aspects you might consider is that this could explain why the US and the Turks have become rather vocal over the last 3 years, which I hope you’ve noticed. See, if the Iraqi Kurds get a homeland, the Turks won’t accept that on their own backdoor. The fact that this issue surfaced between Turkey and the US is one, and only one, piece of evidence suggesting that perhaps the strategy may exist. Please don’t think that because I can’t be arsed detailing all the evidence, there isn’t a lot more besides. I just can’t really see the point of trying to establish it to your satisfaction. I mean, what does it prove?
Yeah but why the fuck can’t people get this simple fact. Neither the US nor Israel ever showed any indication whatsoever they were serious about negotiating with Hamas. The charter was the excuse they used not to. It’s fucking simple. It wasn’t a reason. Only idiots could possibly believe it was, or is.
But nevertheless, glad you mentioned Fatah in the same breath. These days, people seem to forget that they’re both pretty much as bad as the other. Funny that. Hamas this, Hamas that. Almost as if they’d been brainwashed.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Possible peace talks between Palestine and Israel,
Hamas/Fatah and Israel,; “No matter what you agree to we are committed to killing all Jews”
End of negotiations – seems fair to me
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Reid, Mark Steyn described the difference between Fatah and Hamas, the choice for Gaza voters; as between kleptocracy and theocracy.
reid (1660) Vote: 0 1 Says:
January 8th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
I would also hasten to add that the process of making these people trustworthy friends involved getting their unconditional surrender, first, and THEN being generous to them.
“Unconditional surrender was a strategic disaster in WWII, Phil.”
EH? What is so disastrous about ending up with some very prosperous friends and ally nations decades later, as opposed to nations that gave you a half-arsed surrender that retained a whole lot of their pride in their cause; which then bubbled over again 3 decades later into more war? I do not at all get your point.
reid (1660) Vote: 0 0 Says:
January 8th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
“No the point is, Phil, that Jews weren’t the ONLY ones living there during those times you speak of.
Following the diaspora, as I understand it, the modern-day Palestinians occupied the same land they’d always occupied. Jews also continued living there, they just weren’t the ones in charge. I understand it’s also the case that those Jews who continued living there did so peacefully and in peace.”
Aw c’MON, Reid; you really, really need to read a bit of long-established history about how the Jews were treated in their own land; for a start by Mohammed himself and his forces even while he was alive; and right up till the 20th Century. It is not nice; pogrom after pogrom, between each of which the Jews were ALWAYS second-clss citizens. OK, the Nazi holocaust in Europe was one thing, but irrespective of that, one is entitled to NOT give the Islamic fellow-occupants of Palestine the benefit of the doubt about their treatment of the Jews in their midst. Does the term “Dhimmi” mean nothing to you? If not, that is half our problem, debating round in circles like we are.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
And Reid, that is what I say again and again as in my posting on this thread at 12.09 yesterday; the Jews and the Arabs (NOT “Palestians”) who had lived in Palestine for centuries, did NOT live “in peace” with one another, and by the way, it was not the JEWS committing regular pogroms against the Arabs.
The international community was involved in the solution: separating the two peoples; giving the Jews a mere 14,000 square kilometers of land on which they were the existing majority; while the newly-created nation of Jordan was 100,000 square kilometers (again, there were never any people who regarded themselves as “Jordanians”; they were Arabs who lived around the Jordan river; even Syria and Iraq are likewise Arabic nations and there has in the past been a strong Pan-Arabic movement). In addition to Jordan, the Arabic nations add up to hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of territory.
Do you understand that 14,000 square kilometer Israel contained a few hundred thousand Jews; and 650 thousand MORE fled there from the surrounding Arabic nations; yet 300,000 Arabs who fled from Israel to Jordan and the other Arabic nations, about half the number of Jews that LEFT; were not ever received by these nations and have been festering away as “Palestinians” in refugee camps and bantustans ever since? And their high birth rates are responsible for there being so many of them now?
FFS. The Jews got FOURTEEN THOUSAND KILOMETERS – think Wanganui – Manawatu – Horowhenua – Kapiti Coast – Wellington. THAT’S IT. The Jews are friggen SAINTS, the way they put up with the raw end of the deal all the way along the line. They didn’t even get ANY of the areas that mattered religiously to them, like Jerusalem or Bethlehem. And the tiny, Bantustan-like 14,000 square kms were so indefensible that no-one in 1946 expected them to survive; it was like they had been set up for the completion of the “final solution” that Hitler hadn’t quite finished; “hey, we’ll ship the survivors off to Palestine and let the Arabs finish the job, nudge, nudge, wink, wink…..”
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Reid Jews were in Jerusalem over a thousand years before Mohammed was a glint in his mothers eye.
For some reason you call this unproven yet historians can provide the timelines for all the associated events.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
The Necessity of Israel
by Charles Krauthammer
Charles Krauthammer is a 1987 Pulitzer Prize winner, 1984 National Magazine Award winner, and a columnist for The Washington Post since 1985.
Late Saturday, thousands of Gazans received Arabic-language cell-phone messages from the Israeli military, urging them to leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons. — Associated Press, Washington, Dec. 27
Some geopolitical conflicts are morally complicated. The Israel-Gaza war is not. It possesses a moral clarity not only rare but excruciating.
Israel is so scrupulous about civilian life that, risking the element of surprise, it contacts enemy noncombatants in advance to warn them of approaching danger. Hamas, which started this conflict with unrelenting rocket and mortar attacks on unarmed Israelis — 6,464 launched from Gaza in the last three years — deliberately places its weapons in and near the homes of its own people.
This has two purposes. First, counting on the moral scrupulousness of Israel, Hamas figures civilian proximity might help protect at least part of its arsenal. Second, knowing that Israelis have new precision weapons that may allow them to attack nonetheless, Hamas hopes that inevitable collateral damage — or, if it is really fortunate, an errant Israeli bomb — will kill large numbers of its own people for which, of course, the world will blame Israel.
For Hamas the only thing more prized than dead Jews are dead Palestinians. The religion of Jew-murder and self-martyrdom is ubiquitous. And deeply perverse, such as the Hamas TV children’s program in which an adorable live-action Palestinian Mickey Mouse is beaten to death by an Israeli (then replaced by his more militant cousin, Nahoul the Bee, who vows to continue on Mickey’s path to martyrdom).
At war today in Gaza, one combatant is committed to causing the most civilian pain and suffering on both sides. The other combatant is committed to saving as many lives as possible — also on both sides. It’s a recurring theme. Israel gave similar warnings to Southern Lebanese villagers before attacking Hezbollah in the Lebanon war of 2006. The Israelis did this knowing it would lose for them the element of surprise and cost the lives of their own soldiers.
That is the asymmetry of means between Hamas and Israel. But there is equal clarity regarding the asymmetry of ends. Israel has but a single objective in Gaza — peace: the calm, open, normal relations it offered Gaza when it withdrew in 2005. Doing something never done by the Turkish, British, Egyptian and Jordanian rulers of Palestine, the Israelis gave the Palestinians their first sovereign territory ever in Gaza.
What ensued? This is not ancient history. Did the Palestinians begin building the state that is supposedly their great national aim? No. No roads, no industry, no courts, no civil society at all. The flourishing greenhouses that Israel left behind for the Palestinians were destroyed and abandoned. Instead, Gaza’s Iranian-sponsored rulers have devoted all their resources to turning it into a terror base — importing weapons, training terrorists, building tunnels with which to kidnap Israelis on the other side. And of course firing rockets unceasingly.
The grievance? It cannot be occupation, military control or settlers. They were all removed in September 2005. There’s only one grievance and Hamas is open about it. Israel’s very existence.
Nor does Hamas conceal its strategy. Provoke conflict. Wait for the inevitable civilian casualties. Bring down the world’s opprobrium on Israel. Force it into an untenable cease-fire — exactly as happened in Lebanon. Then, as in Lebanon, rearm, rebuild and mobilize for the next round. Perpetual war. Since its raison d’etre is the eradication of Israel, there are only two possible outcomes: the defeat of Hamas or the extinction of Israel.
Israel’s only response is to try to do what it failed to do after the Gaza withdrawal. The unpardonable strategic error of its architect, Ariel Sharon, was not the withdrawal itself but the failure to immediately establish a deterrence regime under which no violence would be tolerated after the removal of any and all Israeli presence — the ostensible justification for previous Palestinian attacks. Instead, Israel allowed unceasing rocket fire, implicitly acquiescing to a state of active war and indiscriminate terror.
Hamas’ rejection of an extension of its often-violated six-month cease-fire (during which the rockets never stopped, just were less frequent) gave Israel a rare opportunity to establish the norm it should have insisted upon three years ago: no rockets, no mortar fire, no kidnapping, no acts of war. As the U.S. government has officially stated: a sustainable and enduring cease-fire.
If this fighting ends with anything less than that, Israel will have lost again. It can ill afford to lose any more wars.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Israel’s Proportionate Response
by Michael Gerson
There is no question — none — that Israel’s attack on Hamas in Gaza is justified. No nation can tolerate a portion of its people living in the conditions of the London Blitz — listening for sirens, sleeping in bomb shelters and separated from death only by the randomness of a Qassam missile’s flight. And no group aspiring to nationhood, such as Hamas, can be exempt from the rules of sovereignty, morality and civilization, which, at the very least, forbid routine murder attempts against your neighbors.
Israel’s response has been criticized as “disproportionate,” which betrays a misunderstanding of proportion’s meaning. The goal of military action, when unavoidable, is not to take one life in exchange for each one unjustly taken; this is mere vengeance. The goal is to remove the conditions that lead to conflict and the taking of life. So far, Israel’s actions have been proportionate to this objective. And the convoys of fuel, medical supplies and food sent by Israel into Gaza show an appropriate concern for Palestinian suffering, even during a broad assault on Hamas forces.
Israel’s immediate goal is simple: to stop missile barrages by Hamas on southern Israel. But it is not a coincidence that this action was taken by the primary sponsors of the peace process in Israeli politics. The Israeli public will not accept any further risks for peace as long as Hamas missiles fly. Those missiles are a daily symbol that Israeli territorial concessions result in the strengthening of committed enemies and the death of Israeli citizens. The removal of this threat is not an obstacle to the peace process. It is the prerequisite for the resumption of the peace process.
It is also not a coincidence that the Israeli attack took place in the last days of a reliably favorable Bush administration — for which the president-elect, above all, should be grateful. If Israel concludes the main phase of its Gaza operations by Inauguration Day — as it seems to want — this will allow Obama to renew a peace push with a fresh start and a large obstacle (hopefully) removed.
But the risks are considerable. A repeat of Israel’s 2006 experience in Lebanon would be a massive blow to the Jewish state — a demonstration of impotence in the face of mortal threats. The Lebanon campaign did not fail because of international pressure and criticism. It failed because Hezbollah terrorists could credibly claim the victory of survival — confirmed by a cease-fire that allowed their rearmament. Syria and Iran were strengthened — not because of Israel’s attack on Hezbollah, but because Israel didn’t prevail.
The Israelis have an advantage this time around. In Lebanon, Hezbollah received a flood of weapons and support from bordering Syria. In Gaza, arms smuggling has been a problem, but bordering Egypt is not pro-Hamas. Israeli air raids have been effective in destroying Hamas infrastructure, weapons stockpiles and smuggling tunnels.
Israel recognizes that Hamas will claim victory no matter how badly it is damaged. But the real determination of winners and losers will come six months after a cease-fire. And there are two objective criteria of Israeli success: an end of rocket and mortar attacks on Israel and an end of large-scale arms smuggling to Hamas.
What would be the shape of such a victory? That is not yet clear. Israel could reoccupy Gaza, overthrow Hamas and enforce its terms. But Israeli leaders, by most accounts, don’t prefer this massive exertion, which also would imply that Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza was a mistake. It is more likely that a ground invasion, if it comes, would last a matter of days. In this case, Israel would reserve the right to resume attacks in Gaza at any time after the conclusion of a cease-fire — responding to every tunnel that is dug and every missile that is fired. And Hamas could, of course, finally observe a cease-fire that doesn’t involve random attacks on Israeli families.
In this crisis, Israel faces a test of its wisdom and competence: Would its leaders really have undertaken such a high-risk operation without a clear endgame?
America, in turn, faces a test of its moral judgment. This conflict is not a contest between shades of gray in mist and fog. It is a matter of distinguishing between murderers and victims — and of supporting an ally until a clear victory against terrorism is achieved.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
reid (1660) Vote: 0 0 Says:
January 8th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
“Phil, just further to your reference to the Muslim Brotherhood. The excellent BBC doco ‘The Power of Nightmares’ has some interesting history on that movement. Apparently the Egyptians, I think it was, imprisoned the founder for some reason. They did thinks like lock him up naked in a cell for hours with attack dogs.
Brutal. Excellent doco though, if you haven’t already seen it.”
Reid, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan Al-Banna, was no saint. OK, the Egyptians treated him brutally. But the guy himself was all about brutality and terror and theocracy. Think the Taleban in Afghanistan, and you will get the idea. Egypt so far, has resisted that kind of regime, locking up and executing a lot of people in the process. This has been a long, long fight, and the West only started taking any notice of it after Sept 11, 2001. And most of the West are still utterly ignorant of the intrinsic NATURE of the enemy.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
And when you look at the fact Fatah showed complete corruption, whereas Hamas showed Muslim principles in charity, whom is the theocracy?
When Roosevelt introduced it as a chance remark at Casablanca, Churchill was aghast, according to Lord Alanbrook’s memoirs. Alanbrook was CIGS during almost all of WWII and therefore the closest military professional to Churchill’s military thinking during the entire war. It’s a great book. Many have pointed to the flaws. Chief of which is the back to the wall resistance it engendered, prolonging the conquest of western Europe and permitting the Soviets to gain far more territory than they otherwise would have.
Hey you may well be right Phil, and I completely wrong. I don’t personally think you are entirely accurate, as I think you might be bringing European pogrom history into a Middle Eastern context, but OTOH, you may well be right. However, I really don’t care. See, if you want to argue about ME historical injustice, I don’t care who’s right or wrong. It’s quite enough for me to know there appears to be good arguments on both sides and that many people who HAVE devoted their lives to it agree, on both sides, there are some really serious arguments. That’s about the limit of my intellectual curiousity, because I don’t care to learn enough to really be able to accurately judge the validity of any claim to my own satisfaction. Because that’s what I’d have to do. If anyone else cares to put their understanding of ME rights and wrongs up against the best muslim and jewish historians in the world, that’s fine. So on that basis I’ll concede Phil, you may well be totally right and I’m totally wrong.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
UN School: Media Absolves Hamas
With Hamas using the civilian population of Gaza as a human shield, we warned in our last communique of the imminent danger of a future mass casualty event and the increased pressure on Israel from media reaction.
With Hamas losing on the battlefield, we posited that the terrorist group would hit back by cynically causing civilian casualties to achieve what it could not do on the battlefield – bringing about intense pressure on Israel to halt its military operation.
Tragically, Palestinian civilians lost their lives on Tuesday as an Israeli tank shell hit a UN school where they were sheltering.
In the past, journalists have complained that Israel has been too slow to present its side of the story to make the print deadlines. This time, the media has no such excuse. With righteous indignation, many media outlets have condemned Israel, choosing to ignore the responsibility that Hamas bears for this tragedy, which becomes clear following an initial IDF investigation into the incident:
Hamas terrorists fired mortar bombs from the area of the school towards Israeli forces, who returned fire towards the source of the shooting. The Israeli return fire landed outside the school, yet a series of explosions followed, indicating the probable presence of munitions and explosives in the building. Intelligence indicates that among those killed were Immad Abu Iskar and Hassan Abu Iskar, two known Hamas mortar crewmen.
While the investigation of the incident continues, one crucial detail is already apparent: this tragedy occurred because Hamas consistently uses its own population as human shields. While betting that Israel will hesitate to strike back at areas with civilians present, Hamas covers its bet with the knowledge that should civilians be harmed, Hamas still wins since Israel will be censured by the world’s media.
According to the Associated Press, two Palestinian residents said “they saw a small group of militants firing mortar rounds from a street near the school, where 350 people had gathered to get away from the shelling. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.”
Make sure that your local media outlet covers this tragic incident fairly and from both sides of the story.
This is not the first time that Palestinian terrorists have abused UN school facilities. Click here or on the button below to see archive footage of Hamas mortar fire from the UN school in Beit Hanoun from October 2007.
Hamas Exploitation of Civilians as Human Shields
This study (completed during the first week of Operation Cast Lead) provides many examples of how Gazan civilians are used as human shields during terrorist attacks against Israel and combat against the IDF.
YNet News also reports that:
civilians are simply used as cannon fodder or human shields. Reports out of Gaza say residents who attempted to flee their homes in the northern area of the Strip were forced to go back at gunpoint, by Hamas men….
Other civilian complaints state that Hamas gunmen pull children along with them “by the ears” from place to place, fearing that if they don’t have a child with them they will be fair game to the IDF. Others hide in civilian homes and stairwells, UNRWA ambulances, and mosques.
In other reported cases Hamas gunmen hold civilians hostage in alleyways in order to provide themselves with a living barricade to ward off IDF forces.
Click on the image below to see video footage of an armed Hamas terrorist grabbing an innocent young boy off the street to use as a human shield to save his own life.
The Jerusalem Post comments on Tuesday’s incident and the issue of how the media, leaving out vital context, becomes part of the problem:
When readers of Britain’s Guardian are confronted by a front-page photo of a father collapsed in front of his three dead children, they can be forgiven for losing sight of the bigger picture: that between 2001-2008, over 8,000 flying bombs were launched at Israel, traumatizing an entire generation of Israeli children; and that unless the IDF manages to stop Hamas, the months ahead could see life in metropolitan Tel Aviv become as perilous as it is in Sderot.
And when readers of London’s Times see the headline: “We’re wading in death, blood and amputees. Pass it on – shout it out” they, too, may be forgiven for overlooking the fact that Hamas purposely situates its launchers in densely populated areas.
When the Arizona Republic reports: “Israel ignores calls for peace,” a photo isn’t even necessary….
Too many news outlets have allowed their coverage of Gaza to be agenda-driven, to willfully disregard the duty of presenting news and images in context.
Cynically thrusting pictures of dead toddlers at readers and viewers obfuscates truth, bedevils news consumers, and robotically demonizes those “who could do such a thing.”
What a devious way of giving succor to the uncompromising fanatics who are really to blame for the horror of it all.
Robert Fisk: “Massacres” and “Lies”
In the worst case of commentary on Tuesday’s events, notorious anti-Israel polemicist Robert Fisk actually accuses Israel of lying in The Independent:
What is amazing is that so many Western leaders, so many presidents and prime ministers and, I fear, so many editors and journalists, bought the old lie; that Israelis take such great care to avoid civilian casualties….
And I write the following without the slightest doubt: we’ll hear all these scandalous fabrications again. We’ll have the Hamas-to-blame lie – heaven knows, there is enough to blame them for without adding this crime – and we may well have the bodies-from-the-cemetery lie and we’ll almost certainly have the Hamas-was-in-the-UN-school lie and we will very definitely have the anti-Semitism lie.
Fisk, to recall, is a first-class liar who falsely accused Israel of using depleted uranium during the 2006 Lebanon conflict, a charge that he refused to retract after it was comprehensively disproven.
Read the full opinion piece and send your considered comments to The Independent – letters@independent.co.uk – remembering to include your name, postal address and daytime telephone number to ensure a chance of publication on the letters page.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Hey, I wasn’t saying he wasn’t Phil. I don’t support anyone who murders innocents, of any ilk, anywhere.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
If you go to honestreporting.com they have pictures to support the above statements.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Ryan, I think the only bit of your inquisitive post above that I need paste here is the last bit:
“….That’s why I also question the idea of military victory or defeat in this situation. You can be victorious or defeated in a war, but what counts as victory or defeat in an occupation? I’m not saying nothing does – I’m genuinely asking the question.”
Let’s imagine that the allies had offered Hitler an honourable settlement late in the day instead of insisting on unconditional surrender. Let’s imagine no Nazis hung as war criminals, Hitler continuing as head of State, but the Jews, temporarily at least, released from Auschwitz and returning to their own homes. Let’s imagine regular outbreaks of anti-Jewish violence, Kristallnacht over and over again. Let’s imagine a log-running Alsace/Lorraine border dispute with France, with regular rocket attacks and suicide bombings. Let’s imagine “Mein Kampf” and “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” still being best sellers. Let’s imagine Hitler Youth organisations continuing today. Let’s imagines fresh outbreaks of war every 10 years or so, where Germany gets vanquished every time simply because the allies are ever vigilant and don’t allow Germany to build up its military equipment to much of a level. But de-Nazification is never insisted upon and unconditional surrender is never insisted upon.
That is the Arabs of the Middle East today. I would make the difference, that militant Islam in this situation is LESS susceptible to merciful and generous treatment than the Germans might have been in 1945 even if they had been allowed to retain their Naziism; but I could not imagine a “Marshall Plan” working with cells of ex-SS terrorists on the loose. No “Marshall Plan” is going to work in Gaza either, until they have given up “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and Sayyeed Qutb and Hassan Al-Banna and Ruhollah Khomeini on the bedside table; and their own versions of the Hitler Youth and the Gestapo and the “volk”.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
So Israel called a 3 hour ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid to be distributed in Gaza.
How long did it take Hamas to break the ceasefire? Only 20 minutes.
Those people calling out against Israel have no justification for the claims and if they cared about the Palestinians they would be directing their protests at Hamas.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
John Minto is now permanently added to the Hall of Fuckwits.
Has to love Maurice Williamson on TV laying into them. Good stuff Maurice.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Good point, Southern Raider; the IDF has been amazing with their putting evidence on Youtube and the Web; that now renders all the anti-Israel lies even more utterly indefensible.
“Whale Oil” has been posting the best videos one after the other for days. I don’t expect DPF to do the same, this blog is a less concentrated one than “Whale Oil”; but I would like to put the tip out there for everyone. Visit Whale Oil and get watching……..
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Why Phil what a silly idea. The only counter alternative to unconditional surrender isn’t honourable surrender. To paint it as such is highly disingenuous.
BTW, perhaps you haven’t noticed, but some people already allege that the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians is along the lines of the imagery to which you allude at 6:13.
A more counter-productive image I couldn’t imagine. I mean, Israel has already stamped its mighty foot, hasn’t it. So now, I assume, you’re suggesting it stamps it again?
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Exactly Phil.
Average Kiwis have no idea that the majority of the MSM is left wing and therefore inherently anti-Israel. Even when presented with video evidence they refuse to use it claiming it has been doctored. Yes Reuters and co are quite happy to accept photoshopped pictures and Hamas/Hezbollah press releases as gsopel.
Wake up everyone and understand what is happening here.
I wonder if the UN should actually not be held responsible for the deaths in Gaza. By holding Israel to such impossible standards in war they have effectively endorsed the use of human shields by Hamas.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Patrick FYI Cathnews finally posted our comments.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
PhilBest,
That’s a nation-on-nation war again. I’m asking about how one would count victory in an occupation. Let’s say Russia defeated Germany and occupied the whole of the country, taking its land by right of conquest. Some Germans continued to resist the occupation, targeting first Russian military targets and then, decades later, moving on to targeting non-military Russian targets.
This is not a perfect analogy for the situation of the Palestinians, but it’ll do for this question:
What would count as a victory for Russia in that occupation?
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Why the question Ryan?
Gaza is not occupied and hasn’t been since 2005. They are apparently a self ruling area which is why it is valid to state that this is a war.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
True enough, Southern Raider. Like I said, it’s not a perfect analogy, but I’m interested in the answer to the question anyway. I think it’s mainly because I can’t see IDF violence ending Palestinian resistance – terrorism or otherwise. In a war waged between nations, the governments can surrender and be defeated, and the armed forces of that country are ordered to stop fighting.
But Hamas as the pseudo-government of Gaza did not instigate the resistance, but are rather an expression of it. They are a militant group who were voted into government, rather than a government that decided to act militarily. They don’t have an off switch for the violence, because they never switched it on in the first place. Hamas could turn around tomorrow and say, “We surrender! Hamas militiamen, put down your arms!” and Palestinians who want to fight for what they see as their stolen land or fight against what they see as Israel’s continued stranglehold on their people will say, “Well, fuck Hamas, then,” and band around some new group.
That’s what I mean about not being able to win an occupation the same way as you can win against a nation.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
I’m off home. Keep well, all.
Vote:January 8th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Bullshit Ryan.
Reports are coming out of Gaza about the average people pissed off with Hamas stealing their kids to act as human shields.
Hamas may have been voted in by mistake, but they then qucikly eliminated all opposition.
Vote:January 9th, 2009 at 8:56 am
Al Jazeera: “Under what conditions will Hamas agree a ceasefire with Israel?”
Abu Marzouq: “We have three conditions for any peace initiative coming from any state.
First, the aggression of the Israelis should stop. All of the gates should be opened, including the gate of Rafah between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Finally, Israel has to withdraw from the Gaza Strip.
We are not saying we will stop firing rockets from the Gaza Strip to Israel – we are only talking about stopping the aggression from the Israelis against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.
When others talk about a ceasefire, they are saying all military operations should stop.
But we are sending a message [by firing rockets]: “We will not surrender. We have to fight the Israelis and we will win this battle.”
We know we are going to lose a lot of people from our side, but we are going to win, inshallah”
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/200918155333111890.html
Reid says @ 3.16pm; “Yeah but why the fuck can’t people get this simple fact. Neither the US nor Israel ever showed any indication whatsoever they were serious about negotiating with Hamas”.
Hamas says; “We are not saying we will stop firing rockets from the Gaza Strip to Israel – we are only talking about stopping the aggression from the Israelis”
Vote:January 9th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Reid; “Israel stamps its mighty foot”……..
Like, what the allies did to Dresden in 1945, what the Germans did to Malta, what the USA did to Hanoi, and what the Russkies did to Kabul? And what Israel COULD do to Gaza if it was half as inhuman as its haters make it out to be?
FFS, anyone but sick-in-the-head Israel-haters would call what Israel is doing; highly accurate highly surgical strikes.
Consider the Germans use of V-1 rockets in WW2. They were nowhere near as lethal as an actual aircraft bombing campaign; weren’t very accurate, and didn’t actually kill many people. Very like Hamas’ rockets. But would it have been reasonable to expect the allies to leave that out of any peace agreement with Germany, or not do anything about it if Germany kept up those launchings in contravention of the peace agreement? Had they had the means to accurately take out the launching sites, would they not have done so, and had Germany based those launching sites in the middle of Dresden, who would we be blaming in the event of civilian deaths?
Vote:January 9th, 2009 at 11:31 am
I enjoy analogies, Ryan. But Russia/Germany is still too much unlike the situation in Palestine. Do you really beleive that Jews getting their own country in Palestine is anything like a straightout conquest by a country like Russia, of a country like Germany?
Here is a better analogy. Consider the Georgians in the USSR. They actually do want their own country, they are an identifiable race in their own right; they have lived where they live for centuries. But imagine if they were so hated by the Russians that they had always been treated as second class citizens, and the mixture of Russians and Georgians in any given territory was a recipe for strife; but imagine that the Russians had had the upper hand for centuries, most Georgians had fled and become a diaspora, and the Georgian remnant in the USSR occupied a much more limited territory than it once had. This is like Jews in Palestine in the 20th Century.
Imagine the UN mediating in the dispute and drawing up fair borders, based on where the majority of Georgians now live in Georgia; ignoring the original boundaries of Georgia in its past. This is like Israel; the Jews were granted only a small fraction of their ancient territory. Imagine the Russians immediately invading Georgia and wonder of wonders, getting defeated; and the Georgians ending up holding a little more territory than the UN had originally granted them. Imagine, too, Georgians from all over Russia, where they had been forcibly relocated in generations past, fleeing back to the new Georgia. Imagine a similar number of Russians fleeing from the new Georgia.
But imagine those Russians never being accepted as refugees BY RUSSIA; huge, resource-rich Russia; and being left to fester in refugee camps and Bantustans against the day when they will gain “the right of return”. Imagine Russia going to war again and again to try and destroy the Georgians, and failing every time. Imagine the Russian leadership ultimately signing peace treaties with Georgia, mediated by the international community; some of them end up assassinated by the more militant groups who disagree with making peace with Georgia. Imagine the Russian leadership, in those peace agreements, DECLINING the return of the territories that Georgia had won off them. This is what Egypt and Jordan did.
Imagine the whole of Russia, and their sympathisers in the world community, inventing a racial category that had never existed hitherto, to describe those RUSSIANS left within the borders annexed by Georgia. Let’s call them “Crimeans”. Let’s imagine those “Crimeans” continuing to fight against Georgia, which, although a tiny nation and much tinier than Russia, is very well equipped and defended, continues to suppress the “Crimean” uprisings; but after years of struggle and negotiation, withdraws from that even tinier area now described as “Crimea”; and leaves the “Crimeans” (who are all ethnic Russians anyway) to determine their own fate, and receiving more international aid than any other people in history, including from Georgia itself.
Imagine that even then, these “Crimeans” continue to conduct raids accross the border into Georgia, killing as many as a thousand Georgian civilians per year. This is the 2000 “Intifida”. Imagine Georgia then building a border barrier with strict security measures for all persons crossing it. The killings of Georgian civilians drops to nothing as a result. Imagine the international media going nuts at GEORGIA for causing the “Crimeans” so much grief, all the while that RUSSIA has totally closed its border with “Crimea” and gives it no aid whatsoever, apart from smuggled weapons and explosives.
Imagine the “Crimeans” launching crude rockets accross the border at Georgia, at a rate of dozens per day. Imagine the adjacent Georgians having siren warning systems and the populace several times daily ducking into blast shelters; their death rates being correspondingly low. Imagine years of this; imagine the civilians involved finally losing patience with their government, and it looking likely that they will elect a hardline government that will do something about it. The moderate government of Georgia, the most humanitarian government in the world, finally does something in the hopes that the people will not elect the hardliners in a few weeks time. They conduct the world’s most accurate ever “surgical strikes” on “Crimea”, taking out launching sites and armouries; the “Crimeans”, though, with one eye on world opinion, always place these in or adjacent to schools, hospitals, and densely populated areas…………
Vote:January 9th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Humanitarian Israel
By David Solway
FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, January 08, 2009
As we observe a mounting and increasingly pervasive campaign to censure Israel for defending itself against the Hamas thugocracy, we are also witnessing a likely self-induced blindness among both elite institutions and ordinary people. The UN, the media, the NGOs and proliferating altruistic organizations, the European governments (with the exception of Germany), the intellectual panjandrums and a vast popular constituency appear utterly incapable of recognizing the obvious. Israel is in fact under no obligation to lend its support to its self-avowed enemy. It is under no imperative to provide Gaza—whose population elected Hamas by a wide margin and supports terror attacks against Israel by an even wider margin—with medical treatment, diesel fuel, electrical power and food shipments. The Geneva Conventions which assign responsibility to the occupying power for the welfare of the occupied people do not apply in this situation since Gaza can no longer credibly be described as “occupied.”
So the question needs to be asked. What other nation in the world heals and victuals its enemies, while at the same time allowing its own population centers to undergo relentless bombardment? What nation in its right collective mind would go on supplying sustenance to and serving its attackers’ energy needs? Russia, for example, is not under attack, yet even in a non-conflictual situation it has no compunction in cutting off Gas supplies to the Ukraine and threatening to do the same to Europe—in the middle of the winter no less—yet the General Assembly sits on its hands, Amnesty International is deafeningly mute, the streets are empty of protesters. Innocent people can freeze to death for all they care.
But Israel is routinely denounced for supposedly depriving its mortal enemies of food and material. Gaza, let us recall, is a hostile “state” which persists in trying to abduct Israeli soldiers, laying explosive devices at the border, sniping at Israel’s labor force and firing rockets daily at its civilian communities. But what is even more preposterous than such false and hypocritical defamation is the fact that Israel, apparently bowing to pressure or subject to some misguided sense of noblesse oblige, continues to act as Gaza’s fuel pump and breadbasket.
Whatever way we look at it, the situation is so absurd and self-defeating as to defy belief. The many “well-intentioned” peace outfits and most of the world’s governments have not seen fit to acknowledge the plain reality of the overall situation. To repeat: Israel is under no obligation whatsoever to cater to or initiate relations with another state or people. Such is the rule the Muslim nations have adopted wholesale vis à vis Israel . It is the assumption behind the anti-Zionist divestment campaigns of the Churches, NGOs, universities and trade unions, and, indeed, it is an axiom the “world community” has sanctioned for its own members, with the hypocritical exclusion of the Jewish state. This is a basic principle of the jus gentium: there is no legitimate compulsion for a competent authority to “do business” with or provide succour to those it does not wish to.
And thus there is no ethical, legal or political justification for imposing this responsibility upon Israel, especially as Israel has been under attack for years from the very entity it is expected to sustain and subsidize. Nevertheless, from the unreflected perspective of the rest of the world, Israel, which owes nothing to Gaza, must go on furnishing its adversaries with their stipulated requirements. Simply put, Israel is the victim of what we might call negative exceptionalism. Unlike any other country on the planet it must work against its own interests. It is as if there exists among its many enemies a shadowy, perhaps unconscious, realization that only one country in the Middle East is capable of defeating Israel, and that is Israel itself. And therefore, in the current conflict, it must be bullied and constrained to furnish Hamas with the ammunition, so to speak, that can be used against it.
That, I believe, is for much of the world what Gaza is all about. Against all common sense and natural law, Israel must be forced via moral condemnation and political pressure to feed, equip, endow and replenish Hamas and its Gazan electors until the Jewish state finally succumbs to a process of physical and military erosion, and becomes something other than a Jewish state. The world demands that Israel defeat itself in the absence of any stronger opponent in the region to complete the task. And Israel, at least up to now and despite its belated military response to continued Hamas aggression, seems perfectly willing to comply.
Vote:January 9th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Roots of the Gaza Conflict
By Nonie Darwish
FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, January 08, 2009
With the explosive current events in Gaza, the world needs to understand the roots of this eternal conflict, otherwise we are all kidding ourselves with hopes of peace.
For decades, Arabs had demanded that Israel end the “occupation,” and in 2005, Israel did so, disengaging unilaterally from Gaza. With their demands met, there was no ‘cycle of violence’ to respond to, no further justification for anything other than peace and prosperity. With its central location and beautiful beaches on the East Mediteranean, a peaceful and prosperous Gaza could have become another Hong Kong; a shining trade and commerce center. But instead of choosing peace, the Palestinians chose Islamic jihad. They rolled their rocket launchers to the border and started bombing Israeli civilians.
Understanding the reasons why the Palestinians chose violence over peace requires connecting the dots from the behavior of Muslim states back to the laws of Islam: Sharia. Mainstream Sharia books define Jihad as: “to war against non-Muslims to establish the religion.” (Shafi’i Sharia o9.0). Jihad is not just the duty of the individual Muslim, but it is also the main duty of the Muslim head of State (the Calipha):
“A Muslim calipha is entrusted to take his people into war and command offensive and aggressive Jihad. He must organize Jihad against any non-Muslim government, which prevents Muslim da’wah (meaning preaching and spreading Islam) from entering its land.” (Shafii Law o25.0 to o25.9).
Sharia law# o25.9 states:
“(When the caliph appoints a ruler on a region, his duty includes) if the area has a border adjacent to enemy lands, (he will) undertake Jihad against enemies, dividing the spoils of battle among combatants and setting aside a fifth for deserving recipients.”
Also:
“The Caliph makes war upon Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax provided he has first invited them to enter Islam or pay Jizya, the non-Muslim poll tax, (in accordance with the word of Allah Most High Chapter 9 verse 29).”
Zia-Ul-Haq, former President of Pakistan, said “jihad in terms of warfare is a collective responsibility of the Muslim Ummah.”
One of Islam’s eminent 20th century scholars, Sheikh Maolana Maududi said:
“Islam wishes to destroy all states and governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and program of Islam regardless of the country or the nation which rules it. The purpose of Islam is to set up a state on the basis of its own ideology and program … the objective of Islamic jihad is to eliminate the rule of an un-Islamic system and establish instead an Islamic system of state rule. Islam does not intend to confine this revolution to a single state or a few countries; the aim of Islam is to bring about a universal revolution.”
Some people seem to think that such laws are just historical relics, on the books but not in practice or in control of the minds of Muslims. But that is the kind of denial we cannot afford; these laws rule the hearts, minds and actions of a majority of Muslim individuals and states around the world today. These scriptures are taught, preached and promoted as the incontrovertible and eternal word of God and funded by Saudi petrodollars throughout the world, including Western nations such as the U.K. and the United States.
No Muslim leader can survive in a Muslim country if he announces the end of Jihad against non-Muslim countries and states that all references to Jihad in Islamic law do not apply today. Treating non-Muslim neighboring countries and individual as equals, with respect and in peace without trying to convert them to Islam, is simply against Islamic Law.
Muslim leaders who dare to go against this theology are called traitors and puppets of the ‘Great Satan’ West. That is a description that no Muslim leader wants to be labeled with. When president Anwar Sadat of Egypt signed the peace treaty with Israel in 1979, he told his confidants that he knew he was signing his own death warrant. He understood that under Sharia he must have permanent war with non-Muslim Israel.
How can a Muslim leader or individual avoid the hundreds of Quran and Hadith commandments to Muslims to kill Jews and Christians? Q 9:29: “Fight those who believe not in Allah until they pay the Jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.” Q 9:5: “Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them”. Q47.4: “When you encounter the unbelievers, Strike off their heads.”
A Muslim leader cannot face his devout Muslim subjects after making a decision to engage in friendship and peace with Jews. Mosques all over the Middle East, after all, recite Mohammed’s commandment to Muslims:
“The Hour [Resurrection] will not take place until the Muslims fight the Jews, and kill them. And the Jews will hide behind the rock and tree, and the rock and tree will say: oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, this is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!” (Sahih Muslim 41:6985, also Sahih Bukhari 4:52:177)
This Hadith, issued by Mohammad, makes a whole group of people illegal to exist. It was issued in the 7th century, not after the 1948 creation of the State of Israel. It is not a response to modern-day grievances; it is a permanent commandment.
Many Muslims claim that Arabs and Jews lived well together for many years before 1948. But that claim ignores the fact that Jews had to live as ‘dhimmies’ under Islamic Law and were never allowed to rule themselves separate of the Islamic Sharia. When Muslims were weak they often treated their dhimmi subjects well and ignored the commandments to kill, subjugate and humiliate them. But Jew hatred is intrinsic to Islamic scriptures that do not permit reformation under the penalty of death.
This is the real basis of the Arab/Israeli conflict: not a conflict over land or occupation, but a divine obligation to destroy neighboring (non-Muslim) Israel, where Jews are no longer dhimmis but are free to rule themselves. We cannot ignore the root of the problem in Muslim scriptures. That is the true force behind the hate and propaganda Jihadist machine against Jews in the Muslim world.
Some Muslims tell me that they don’t believe in Sharia and question why am I making a big deal about it. My answer is that Sharia is the law of the land in 54 Muslim countries and many Muslim groups are demanding Sharia in the West. In 1990, 45 Muslim countries signed the Cairo Human Rights Declaration which stated that Sharia has supremacy over the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The Muslim world must look within to its sacred laws, scriptures, sermons, teaching and preaching, and reform the obstacles for peace that have condemned them to a permanent state of jihad. The non-Muslim world must have no illusions.
Nonie Darwish is an American of Arab/Moslem origin. A freelance writer and public speaker, she runs the website http://www.ArabsForIsrael.com.
Vote:January 9th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
I don’t know yet Phil, as I’ve said quite a few times above, I never analyse the results until the dust settles. I find too much unreliable propaganda on both sides tends to obscure the facts. I do think however that in the entire Israel-Palestinian conflict, perception matters. My reading of world perception is that ‘surgical’ is not the word most people would use. Israel was acting rather like a split-personality, when it did on the one hand, positive message-management things like phone calls, but then on the other, used WP in built-up areas. The point I made about that above, is even if you believe WP is for smokescreens, it’s not a good look and I bet there are alternatives available.
It’s like the IDF’s PR people took their hand off the wheel and that one enduring message sent by the use of WP, which is all most people will remember in 6 months, wiped out all their other efforts. How curious.
Patrick, you’ve made a useful point for my argument, so thanks for that. How can anyone possibly still advocate this campaign was about stopping Qassams? The IDF is many things but naive is not one. They know Qassams will keep right on going. The Israeli politicians only hope they slow down a bit till after Feb 15. I bet however that no-one except a few school children in Israel, expects them to stop altogether. So why is it that some appear to imagine that this is what Gaza 09 was all about?
Vote:January 9th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
The UN War on Israel
This article, by Anne Bayefsky, originally appeared in The New York Daily News.
The United Nations war on Israel has never been on the back burner, and its feeding frenzy over Gaza is no exception. The Security Council has now held four sessions. The General Assembly has scheduled an emergency session for Thursday night, and on Friday, the UN’s lead human rights body, the Human Rights Council, will hold a special session to damn Israel.
To put this in perspective, the Security Council is the UN’s lead response to terrorism. After 9/11, the Security Council started convening as “the Counter-Terrorism Committee” or CTC. The CTC has never identified a single terrorist, terrorist organization or state sponsor of terrorism – because the Islamic chokehold on the UN leaves it without a definition of terrorism to this day.
The General Assembly has had 10 emergency sessions in its history. Six of those, including the 10th, have been on Israel, and the tenth has been “reconvened” 16 times since 1997. In other words, there is a permanent General Assembly emergency session on Israel. The same Assembly never managed to hold a single emergency session on the 800,000 people who died in the Rwandan genocide, or the 3 million who are dead or displaced in Sudan.
As for the “reformed” Human Rights Council, it is now holding its fifth special session on Israel. By comparison, the Council has held nine regular sessions on human rights in all of the other 191 UN states. In fact, over its two and a half-year history, the Council has condemned Israel more often than all other states in the United Nations combined.
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that since Israel finally decided to defend itself against the 8,000 rockets and mortar shells directed at its civilian population over eight years, the long UN knives have been quickly drawn. In addition to all the meetings, which are now webcast for propaganda purposes around the world, UN officials have used their global platforms to vilify the Jewish state and to try to tie Israel’s hands behind its back. In one form or another, UN officials always manage to choke on the word “self-defense.”
From out of the woodwork come UN gurus from the myriad UN bodies which have Israel-bashing as part of their job description: Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied Since 1967; Karen AbuZayd, Commission-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA); John Ging, UNRWA Director of Operations in Gaza; Maxwell Gaylard, United Special Coordinator in the Occupied Territories (UNSCO), Paul Badji and the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People; Robert Serry, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process; and Christine van Nieuwenhuyse, World Food Program Representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Right alongside those folks for the past two weeks have been the UN “experts” and agencies whose well-being – their stature and internal authority, re-appointment, promotion, pension, operational funding and institutional perks of all kinds – depend on being on the Arab side of all Arab-Israeli conflicts. These people include the Secretary-General, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and UN Emergency Relief Coordinator; the UN Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator (OCHA); the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict; the Chairperson of the Coordination Committee of Special Procedures; the Executive Director, UN Population Fund (UNFPA); and the Director-General, UNESCO.
Together all of these UN actors have mounted a feverish chorus alleging that Israel has committed “wanton aggression,” “monstrosities,” “massacres,” and “crimes against humanity.” In each case humanized Palestinian victims are placed on one side of the scale, and a small number of Israeli deaths are set on the other. Evidently, the UN only started counting Israeli bodies last week. Left out of this phony “proportionality test” is the terror associated with every Hamas-driven attempt to cause more death and destruction. And it is politically incorrect in the extreme to mention that the blameless Palestinians freely elected a terrorist group sworn to killing Jews.
In short, Hamas has perfected a form of human sacrifice in the 21st century. It launches rockets from schools, uses ambulances as transport, hides behind women and children, and wears civilian clothing as camouflage. Palestinian civilian casualties are the Palestinian leadership’s weapon of choice. The only body still allegedly oblivious to this grotesque calculation is the UN. Asked about Hamas’ use of civilians as human shields, UNRWA chief, AbuZayd responded: “I don’t know of these human shields being used… What I would say is that Hamas very much leave us alone; let me say, they respect us.”
The UN cacophony is not what Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had envisaged for her swan song. She hoped to exit with a Security Council resolution that she rammed through on December 16th, against Israel’s wishes, praising her stillborn Annapolis initiative and bringing UN tentacles ever closer to their Israeli target by involving the Security Council more closely in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Which brings us to today’s situation. Every anti-Israel idea out there has one major goal – whether it is propagated by France, Europe, Russia, Egypt, or the UN. They all want in on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Solutions subject to negotiations between the parties? Israeli control over its own borders? Not if any of these players can help it.
The drafts of UN presidential statements and resolutions now being floated include one key element. Wrest control from Israel and diminish Israeli sovereignty. The drafts insert international players via calls to “provide protection for civilian populations” or “establish and deploy an international observer force.” Any such insertion of international actors will have only one result: to diminish the ability of Israel now and in the future to protect its citizens.
Israeli leaders must reject any formula that smacks of such a degradation of their inherent right to control their own destiny. And as for the United States, if President Bush is looking for an honorable swan song, it’s now or never. This is the moment to tell your Secretary of State, after her years of a vain-glorious search for approval from the international community, that Israel is not for sale.
For more United Nations coverage see http://www.EYEontheUN.org.
Vote:January 9th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Bit like the Monty Python, ‘Brave Sir Robin’ when one of the would be bombers ran away to the Continent in a Burkha.
Dresses as a woman to escape consequences, how brave!
They all make me want to Vom.
Because these deranged crazies actually do want to kill us all!
Believe it.
Vote:January 9th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Let me just expand on my point above about the IDF’s message management re: WP. I find it unbelievable that the effect of the use of WP on the IDF’s message management, when authorisation went up the chain, would have been overlooked when deciding whether or not to use it.
It’s elementary PR to determine precisely what the world press would do with such an issue. WP had to have been authorised at the highest levels, including the political. At some point in the authorisation chain and the IDF’s propaganda arm would be a part of that, the discussion had to have been made about what this usage would do to the IDF’s image. Not to mention the fact that the first politician who saw it would have a grand mal.
It’s obviously dynamite, to a child.
Equally obviously, authorisation for that must have been high.
So let’s see:
(a) is WP dynamite with a predictable effect on world opinion? Y
(b) is WP just available and commonly used any old time for your average common-or-garden tasks? N
(c) who would have to authorise its use? High military certainly, Politicians, almost certainly, at least the Defence Minister
Hmmm.
Vote:January 9th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Sally,
I hope you are still around, as you asked for the Catholic reaction to what Fr Burns did the other day.
For the record, I am absolutely horrified and ashamed that the 2nd in command in the Wellington diocese could do such a thing.
Here are link to two NZ Catholic blogs with reactions as well.
Dona Nobis Pacem ~ NZ Conservative
Vote:Season of Hope? ~ Being Frank
January 12th, 2009 at 7:59 am
You did a great job of setting the tone, DPF: ignore the actual incidents and pretend it’s all about Falk.
Here’s another one:
See if you can find some slime on her, will you? There’s a good chap.
Then perhaps you could have a crack at those Red Cross quislings …
Does the sheer horror of this scene touch you people at all?
Honestly: the Gaza death toll is nearing 1000, 40% of them children, with thousands more injured flowing into hospitals that can’t cope. You are all entitled to a view on the geopolitics of the assault. But would a little human decency be out of the question?
Vote: